Setting up and maintaining a starbase is a serious responsibility and knowing how to defend a starbase from attacks is a very valuable asset. Starbases form the backbone of alliances claim on solar systems and offer many lucrative options for production and research for anyone willing to invest the time and ISK necessary. Poorly managed and defended starbase is a serious liability to an alliance's defense grid and can mean hours of time and hundreds of millions of wasted ISK.

Basic Concepts

All defensive structures at a control tower are either passive or active.
Passive structures only affect the starbase itself and do not make any direct impact on pilots that may be attacking the starbase. This includes but is not limited to Shield Hardening Arrays, Tracking Arrays and other similar structures. Passive structures can not be controlled by a pilot and will continue giving their bonus until they are disabled. Passive structures are anchored inside the control tower force field.

Active structures can affect attacking forces in some direct way and many of them can be directly controlled by a pilot with the prerequisite skills. Active structures must be anchored outside of the control tower force field. If not under direct control of a pilot active structures will revert back to the defensive parameters set on the control tower they are anchored at.

This includes but is not limited to all weapon batteries, all electronic warfare batteries, cynosural field jammer, energy neutralizer arrays and other similar structures that can have a direct impact on other pilots.