Thanks.
You can use some of my map tricks in a template--say you want an invunerable non-pirate planet module at a pirate base.
Make it a militia structure and have it spawn with no other defenses or forces at a militia owned planet as part of the template for the planet entity you use. Also have a pirate force spawn there complete with siege ships and a pirate colonizer.
The pirates will siege and colonize the planet but the structure will remain. If you pattern your indestructible base after trade ports, it will churn out "experience freighters" (which pirates and militia will love) for you--just make a custom one for the neutrals with custom trade ships.
If you want active pirate raids, a second pirate base will be needed. If the game starts without any planet-owning pirates they are auto-defeated--though they will still siege and colonize the neutral planet where they spawn.
You can easily reverse the process and militia trade places with the pirates, etc.
if you make a default template that spawns a specific player slot, it may mess with your starting races and positions if that player is not present and the map uses fixed starting positions.
If you don't want a permanent "experience factory", just allocate varying hit points to it to give it enough time to spawn ships but eventually die. You can do other things like give it a phase defense or diplomatic immunity so that it's"offline" most of the time and only spawns for brief periods when not under attack. You could make it a hangar with high value strikecraft or have it drop turrets with good experience values--possibly making these strikecraft and turrets heavy hitting and making players earn things. In addition to experience ships, you could add another ability that only has a chance of activating--say one that spawns an enemy capital ship.
Credits and resources can also be gained this way.
Off-topic a bit: I think I figured out how to fix my pirate raids the way I want.
