[geoschmo]

I still think this will be too open to exploit. The easiest way to drop your score in a hurry is to simply mothball all your ships. Then you can unmothball them on the next turn. Seems kind of artificial and there's really no recovery time except that your ships won't be trained. Of course neither will anyone elses so it's not a big deal.

If you want it to be like Survivor you could actually vote to decide who leaves the game.