So I was looking at one of my neighbours the other day and concluded my territory would be more asthetically pleasing with theirs added, so I took it, conquered the lot and absorbed them (they were a hive mind, I've watched star trek, I know how that shit ends)

Immediately after, my income plummeted due to the addition of their star bases pushing my upkeep to around 150% so now I need to decide which star bases to dismantle to bring that down and that's when it hit me, star bases should have a 'power down' option where they basically go into low power mode. They would still require a small upkeep (to keep the thing floating and support the crew) but only a fraction of the full amount (the trade off is that they can't be used for anything). You could then reactivate them at a later date for a cost and it would take time to reactivate (both time and cost would scale due to size) and both shutting down and reactivating would have a cool off period.

What do you think?