If you want to expand your influence territory, build them just outside the current borders. If you want to flip a planet, build them next to it. They % stuff in the UI is apparently there to keep us guessing. AFAIK, they do not boost inflluence from any other bases or planets, they just create their own influence.

I can't follow you here. AFAIK, nothing has seriously changed in this context since DL, and I don't recall any widespread calls for changes (I don't read everything, but I lurked a fair time before I started posting). I only recently heard unofficial talk about the bases not boosting influence from other bases or planets, and I'm not the sort of exhaustive note-taker to have been able to confirm or refute the claim with my own evidence, but the "info" didn't really change how I think about or use inf bases much more than making more likely to start an array beside a fat flip target.

Starbases make influence much like a planet, but (obviously) indepentent of population. The modules you add on to one do not affect anything other than the base itself. Also note the influence from bases drops off much faster with distance compared to influence from planets, so when using one offensively, the best place to put it is in contact with the target planet(s). Ignore the ring that denotes the area of effect, for influence bases it is irrelevant.

There are several places in the GUI where things are referred to by percentages (implying percentages of some other baseline) that seemingly should be stated in more absolute terms - off the cuff examples include sensors and speed, but it seems to permeate some other spots as well. I know early on I had several occasions to be confused - in my head, +30% speed should mean that speed 10 ship with three warp engines (3*3+1) 10 should go at 13, not that a speed one ship is actually going speed four - {G}.

Jonnan