[Baron Munchausen]

Trying to break the design classes like this seems awfully desperate to me. Load your starbase with MISSILES. They have enough range to cover any planet. You could make a missile mount for bases that extends the range a bit more, even. Or load it with fighter bays... That would be fairly cheap compared to weapons. You could also make weapon mounts for WPs more powerful as I have so that a given WP is equivalent to a much larger ship or base.

The changes we have been requesting to how planets can be damage would help, too. If you had to close in and use special weapons to kill off a planet's population it would be easier to protect. As things are now, you can just stand off and fire whatever standard long-range weapons you have on your ships.