I had an Idea about a new way to impliment a nice feature in the game: planetary bases. You land a constructor on a 0-class planet to claim it and build whatever kind of base you want.
The benefits? It would not count against the maximum # of starbases in a given sector, and it could not be destroyed by roaming ships. I would say that they would need a transport to destroy them (with no loss on the transport's side, off course. 5 millions soldiers against a garnison of 500, lol!)