For the upcoming reverse-engineering update: can it do the same for weapons/LPC?
Also, would be great, if we have a full mechanic in words. Exciting!
When I made it for weapons/LPC as well, it sucked the fun out of the campaign - "not having access" to some things, even in theory, is imperative for the player reward cycle of visiting other planets and attacking others for loot.
But the ability to reverse engineer salvaged ships added neatly to the experience of the ship salvaging/combat loop instead of breaking it, so that's fine.
Regarding mechanics:
The structure adds a storage to the planet it is built on. You place ship hulls into that storage, which then get taken into the structure and are disassembled over time. You get "Research Progress" depending on the ship hull size, with a negative penalty for every D-Mod. Once you disassembled enough ship hulls to be at 100% progress, you can overwrite a blueprint of the same hull size with the new ship data. It takes multiple (3+) capital hulls to get to that point, so it's not easy - but very rewarding if you pull it off.
There is another upcoming thing that'll make it a bit easier to find that rare weapon you want, so no worries.
I deleted all my military relays. The AI doesn't also seem to use them so its kinda unfair too.
In cases like this i recommend activating Brawl Mode. It doubles the size of Invasion Fleets.
With that mode i have seen 4 or 5 Invasion Fleets. Really makes your OP Fleets get a nice challenge.
Next update clamps the total bonus a relay can provide to the maximum fleet size available in the network - if your highest planet has 300%, no other planet with a relay will exceed that number.