I think Stardock should put Outposts in the game.
They'd work identically to barren Asteroids in terms of mechanics (making them easy to apply to the game):
0 Population: This isn't a colony now.
1 colonization upgrade: Hey the crew need somewhere to sleep.
1 shelters upgrade: The crew quarters need some protection against vacuum.
2 explore: Not sure how it would work. Maybe for allowing race specials (explained below) & random finds.
0 logicstics: Again, this isn't a colony now. But researching the appropriate technology should open up the same as it would for other worlds.
2 tactical: This a military outpost. It needs defenses.
Placement: I feel that these Outposts should be put in jump point locations where a asteroid or planet isn't available for colonization. It sucks to have barren and unusable areas that may inconvienently not a allow a static defense. Nor is it fun to watch pirate fleets jump through barren jump-points and ignore the fleet stationed there (forcing the player to wait for the pirate fleet to jump first so they'd know which colony they will jump to). Also, for some areas we could allow race specials for placing an outpost in a specific jump location. Here's my thinking on this:
Wormholes: Yes we should be allowed to place an Outpost at their jump points. If you don't think so then go watch the ENTIRE Star Trek Deep Space 9 show then come back and explain why not!
Asteroids: Yes we should be allowed to have them there. We have asteroid colonies. So why not?
Gas Giants: Yes we should be allowed to have them there too. For convience sake!
Space Junks: Yes we should be allowed to have them there too. This could, also, be where the TEC race special could be at. The TEC race special here would allow for higher than average salvage for starships here (50-100% extra). (this would be due to both the TEC's economic abilities & having salage experts in the these junkyards)
Plasma Storms: Yes we should be allowed to have them there too. This could, also, be where the Vasari race special could be at. It would prevent antimatter regeneration for all enemy ships that enter the jump-point. (due to them having a mastery of phase jump tech)
Magnetic Storms: Yes we should be allowed to have them there too. This could, also, be where the Advent race special could be at. It would prevent shield regeneration for all enemy ships that enter the jump-point. (this is mostly for balance sake. if you can think of another please post it)
Stars: Not quite sure how that would work unless you wanted to create some kind of star forge maybe.
Well that perty much sums it up. I think it should possibly be placed as a high-level civilian technology, but not necessarily. I DON'T think they should be made with a command point requirement attached. They could be built from colony ships or a new special type of vessel.
Thanks for reading! Please post your comments on this.