[Puke]

oh yeah, i nearly forgot:

everyone has always been salivating over the idea of having colonies in deep space. building massive space stations (called 'sides' that will eventually break away from the Federation and form the Principality of Zeon...) that can hold population and generate research, intel, and resources.

this could be addressed by having components of those types being added to ships, even without the ship actually holding any population. likewise it could be addressed by enabling some sort of 'lesser' stellar construction that did not have to be built around a star. or, perhaps in the far future of Space Empires, ships / bases will be able to hold population and have facility type abilities.