Just throwing an idea around here.
A know star bases have been talked before. But I was wondering about a different take on them...
What about a star base you are continually upgrading... it starts off as a small station. (On an asteroid etc) and then you purchase upgrades to it, with this the station continually grows and becomes bigger. Fighter bays etc... additional defences.
I was thinking something like this would for game play reasons take a long time to build (maybe requires using a fleet personnel slot to man?) and additionally research, limited to special places within the system (i.e. could only be constructed in the middle of those dead asteroid belts?) and over time becomes a structure of small connected buildings on the asteroids.
instead of it looking like a fully built station, it would have that appearance of "under construction" to it. (bit like when they built the death star
) so you would want to have ships guarding it.
Maybe the station over time can be either turned into a resource generating station or a forward military outpost.
I know these sectors you can build defence turrets and fighter bays. But I think something more special and unique which can be constructed inside them (and takes a lot of resources/time to build) would make holding/finding these areas more fun.