Quote Originally Posted by JetJaguar2000 View Post
That means that attacking colonies is going to require maintaining fleets of literally hundreds of the strongest ships, which in turn means dozens of shipyards (assuming the ship limit is eventually enforced), etc.
Aren't you forgetting the Advanced Shipyards skill in the Fleet skills tab? That will increase your cap by 10 * number of shipyards. Each rank up in this skill only takes 12 hours to complete, so if you have 3 colonies with shipyards now, you could increase the number of ships you can build by 60 in only one day.

Don't forget, we are all in this game facing the same decisions. What you choose is a trade-off for something else you could have, for better or for worse. You have to consider the opportunity cost of each option and make a decision based on that.