I've read through various wikis and forum articles, but am confused by the fact that AI command ships and guard posts appear to be able to create new ships out of nowhere.
I understand that you can reduce the number of reinforcements arriving at a planet by knocking out the guard posts and warp gate, but surely the AI reinforcements should only enter the planet via wormholes, not just appear spontaneously.
Even after neutering a planet, unless you're prepared to destroy the command ship, it will just spawn new defenders and turrets -OK if you don't plan to drop by again, but a pain if you have a string of planets to pass through to move your fleet between two of your worlds and have to constantly keep fighting back and forth. Transports lessen the pain, but mobile builders still have to be escorted everywhere, which slows things down and distracts me from trying to get somewhere.
So far I'm 20 hours into my first game, so apologies in advance if I'm missing something obvious!