I think starships badly need some sort of transport to get them by masses of wormholes defenses on the other side.
Fleet ships get such protection, yet starships do not, what a shame.
Ironically it seems like fleet ships are the star ships protection but when they are in transports to evade big defenses they certainly aren't helping the poor starships who are lagging.
It seems a shame if you happen to have built a starship on your side of the galaxy then realize you can't get it past a crust, you essentially have to scrap it and build another one on the other side with your transports that slip by the crust.
Starships might be a viable way to play if they could get by crusts without stacking EMPs. (which doesn't even work all the time if they have cores or other emp absorption units).