[PvK]

Yep, that would be a weakness of using the AI to start things. Another alternative would be for me to run a few turns for everyone and do the same thing for everyone - colonize the home system a bit and build a couple of shipyard bases and ferry boats.

Or, not.

I'd rather not use multiple homeworlds because it more or less divides the research cost of everything by the number of homeworlds. What I can do though is change the homeworld value to a multiple, which means everyone gets that many more base resources, without getting more research and intel points. Default Proportions is a bit stingy with resources so you can only maintain a fairly small fleet compared to the unmodded game. Turning up the homeworld and/or other planet values is a pretty easy way to tweak that.

So in response, I'd counter-suggest, for instance, doubling both the usual homeworld and new world resource values.

PvK