[AgentZero]

Ooops... Dang wireless keyboard somehow posted that before I was done. Maybe it's just trying to tell me I shouldn't be posting at 2am.

Anyway, a couple more points before I meander off.
I'd like to see the current ship hulls split into 3 different categories, and maybe see a few new ones. The 3 hull categories would be Escort, Ship-Of-The-Wall, and Capital Ship. In the Escort Class you would have the Corvette, Frigate and Destroyer; SOTW would be Light Cruiser, Cruiser and Battle Cruiser, and Capital Ships would be Battleship, Dreadnought and please please please could I have a Superdreadnought this time around? Your initial shipyards would be able to build only Escort-class ships, and would require upgrading in order to build each succesive class. Planetary Shipyards would only be able to build up to SOTW-class ships, unless someone can tell me out to get a 12,000kt dreadnougt off the ground.

This leads me into my idea about orbita spaceyards. Basically, when you're designing a spaceyard you would have to decide how much space would be taken up by shields, defensive weapons, and SY/repair bays, and how much would be taken up by 'Modules Mounts'. What a Module Mount is should be obvious, and the Module itself would simply be something that you designed like a station, only smaller, and it would fit onto an existing station. So, for example, I build a space station with just a bridge/crew quarters/life support, basic shielding, and 4 Module Mounts. I design a seperate Module containing a Space Yard and Repair Bay, build one of each, slot them together, and voila! I have a working space yard which I set to work building Destroyers. Some time later, I discover the Light Cruiser hull, which is a Ship-of-the-Wall. But SOTW-class ships require a station with at least two SY components, so I build another SY Module and attach it to my existing station. I then decide the station could use a production boost so I build a third SY Module to start cranking out those LCs a bit faster. Then, realizing that this is the only station I have that can build LCs, I decide to improve its defenses and build a Module filled with Weapons and shields, and add that to the station.

Of course, Battle Stations and Starbases, being much larger, could also accomodate a lot more Module Mounts. In fact, I was just thinking, one could design a Module that held 2-3 Module Mounts in order to create massive, sprawling space yards that could build big ships very quickly, and even work on several at a time, which is where the Module idea really comes into its own. If, for example, a LC needs a station with 2 SY comps and can be worked on by a maximum of 3, and I have a station with 9 SY comps, I would just have to pull up the build queue for that station, tell it to build 3 LCs, and it would autmatically begin simultaneous production of them. I think this would remove a lot of the hassle from trying to build large numbers of ships quite quickly.
It would also create the situation where an empire would have only a few centralized construction areas where their biggest, most powerful ships could be built. So, during a war, a bit of sabotage or a carefully timed surgical strike could have devastating effects on an opponent.

More later after I've had some sleep...