Hey guys, Ssethtider here.
Im curious, ive been going through and reading about other games similar to this after starting to play Starsector and have gotten far in Starsector itself, and I stumbled upon a concept called "Starbases" in Stellaris.
For those who eventually start your colonies, the equivalent of a "star base" are pirate bases that pop up; they never colonize the actual planet, they just "pop up" a lv-1 orbital station (that gradually grows if you don't kill it).
Why does the PLAYER not have this feature? It would be an excellent way to phase in from early to mid game, when you have too much stuff on you but don't want to pay factions for their storage, while also wanting to have a place to call your own as a mini-base. The mini-base can be built at any stable location (giving more reason to use them outside of comm relay and stable locations are sometimes in systems with no planets). The "starbase" would have a built in way station / space port but nothing else, and nothing money making can be built on it; its basically the equivalent of a pop-up colony except without having to build a colony.
That or orbital stations can be built anywhere a planet is but doesn't turn into a colony; maybe 50 plutonics, 500 metal, and 200 crew + 100 heavy machinery?
These so called "star bases" would not be raided, or they'd be raided only by low tier desperados, instead of full on bases; this would also serve as a "tutorial" phase for people wanting to start up colonies.
As someone who loves the exploration and lore parts of the game but dislikes the babysitting of colonies till they are all high tier (high command + 2 military bases on separate colonies, orbital works with pristine nanoforge at minimum on best low hazard world to survive most threats) I think this would be a great compromise and teaching tool.
TL;DR orbital stations that are mini-colonies mainly used for storage / waystation, and phasing into learning colony mechanics instead of jumping right into it and dying to unprepared things such as massive pirate bases, expeditions, pathers, etc.