[rdouglass]

I think the idea is good also except that I don't believe SE4 is designed to allow anything but facilities (planet based) to generate research or intel points - no components (ship based). However, you would think that if they can develop components that do resource extraction (robominers), they should be able to develop components that do research and / or intel. That and the habitat mentioned previously could do it...

Check out some other threads - this has been discussed before at length.