Did not read everything yet. Some quick comments.
V.7 - Removing D-Mods
Most ships you obtain will have D-Mods, modifications that have negative effects. Hull restoration has a huge chance to remove one D-Mod after you obtain the ship. After that you remove around one D-Mod per month from your fleet.
You can also remove D-Mods by repairing them in a dock, but the price is higher than buying the ship new and it goes up for every additional D-Mod. A Mule (P) costs 40.800 credits when you produce it yourself and restoring it with one D-Mod costs 48.960. Still, it might be worth restoring small frigates with many D-Mods, so your hull restoration fixes your expensive ships.
I like to store most of my broken ships in my colonies and only take a couple of high value ones to restore over time. When they are fully restored, I rotate them for other ships with D-mods, so my fleet becomes pristine over time.
Keep in mind Hull Restoration does not remove builtin d-mods like Ill-Advised Modifications on Pather ships or Special Modifications on Executor. For those who want pristine version of those, Restore is the only way.
XIV - Raids
There are benefits to raiding the other factions. You can manipulate the market, so you earn even more money, you can obtain blueprints or colony items like a pristine nanoforges, and you can resolve some colony crisis by raiding or tactical bombing planets.
Small planets are easy to raid and you don’t need special preparation. A small fleet with 100-200 marines are enough to wait until there are no defending fleets or to destroy the defenses.
Planets like Kazeron and Chicomoztoc are a different beast. To successfully steal their pristine nanoforge or blueprints you need to destroy their Star Fortress and have 1500+ marines. It might work with less, but 1500 is on the safe side.
This requires enough capital ships and proper logistics. You need around 3-5 capital ships and maybe 3-5 cruisers. Additionally, you need 2000+ supplies and space for your marines. Valkyries and faction codes reduce the casualties of your marines, but aren’t mandatory. The supplies are needed to sustain your fleet while you wait for your chance and to repair your ships after the attack.
You want to either use a Gate or a less frequented Jump-Point to enter the system in “Go Dark” mode. Then, using asteroid belts and nebula you slowly move your fleet closer to your target and wait until the big fleets leave and work on other tasks. It’s best when you only monitor the radar and don’t go into visual range. You pounce when there are no defenders or only Pickets left. Destroy the defenses and raid the system directly afterwards. After you are done, you need to either instantly traverse jump or fly away to lose aggro before you leave the system.
Raids are difficult in mid game and become easy in late game.
You do not need to destroy battlestations of size 7 worlds if you can stack enough attack power. 9000+ attack power from 20 Phantoms, 4000 marines, and low marine xp was enough. Did not have Tactical Drills to boost it. Only Chicomoztoc (for the pristine nanoforge) could not be raided like this. If I had all elite marines and/or taken Tactical Drills, I might be able to raid Chico. Raiding big worlds will lose well over a thousand marines, but if you have lots of cash and several military bases, getting more marines will be almost trivial.
The advantage of stealth raiding big worlds without a fight is less rep loss and being able to keep Ziggurat in the fleet if fighting can be avoided at all.
I prefer to build a stealth fleet, with high-tech phase ships with Phase Field and use Insulated Engines to minimize profile further. With profile at 100 or less when Dark, it is fairly easy to sneak into a world even if a patrol or two is orbiting it. Obviously, Phantom is the ideal raider ship, but Valkyries with Insulated Engines will do in a pinch.
These items are nice to have with the exception of nanoforges. A nanoforge reduces the amount of D-mods on ships you produce and affects your fleets and convoys.
If you want Military Base/High Command self-sufficient (no cross-faction imports), you need Synchrotron and at least a Corrupted Nanoforge.