Alliance are a serie of different mods. On the Star Wars GC, you can play the civil war Empire vs Rebel era + Black Sun and soon the Republic and CIS.
This is the last big change which you will find in the incoming 5.56b. The upgrades from the starbase have been removed from all the factions and now you have other options in the starbase for deploy some defense upgrades.
About the old starbase upgrades, now you can get them conquering several planets. I have added a complete list with these upgrades at my site and where you can get them. Firefoxccmods.com
pretty neat idea!