If You Could Overhaul One Minor Faction or Plot...

[kasnavada]

To me, a MOBA would need an opposing team, and distinct lanes. None of that here...

What some scenarios do feel to me is sword and soldiers  .

[TheVampire100]

To me, a MOBA would need an opposing team, and distinct lanes. None of that here...

What some scenarios do feel to me is sword and soldiers  .

This.
I'm playing a lot of Dota and it never crossed my mind that this is some sort of Moba. Okay, you defend a base and try to destroy another base. This is the standard RTS goal, it is all about AI War if you think about it.
You have also only one heroe (champion) here and the enemy team don't.
If i would compare it with something, I would rather say it's tower defense. You defend a single point from enemie waves.

[NickAragua]

Zenith Miners and the rebel colonies are extremely annoying. However, the rebel colonies at least provide the minor benefit of resource production and a few small craft for your trouble. Zenith Miners do nothing. They don't fire at the AI ships, and the AI doesn't fire at them (due to "IFF hacking" or something like that), so not only do you need to secure the system (most likely forcing your AI progress to go up), but you need to do it without starships. And you get absolutely nothing for your trouble (except for scrap waves).

[Radiant Phoenix]

To me, a MOBA would need an opposing team, and distinct lanes. None of that here...

What some scenarios do feel to me is sword and soldiers  .

How does this look?

(I am, of course, assuming multiple players with Champions.

[TheVampire100]

That would however imply that the entire game is a MOba and not only the Nebular. 

[Radiant Phoenix]

That would however imply that the entire game is a MOba and not only the Nebular. 

If you're a Champion-only player, I'd say it pretty much is.

• You push by taking out objectives on planets and letting the Commander player(s) take the capturables and fortify.
• You jungle by wandering around AI planets taking out threat and SF, and getting the AI to misdeploy reinforcements. Also taking out AI Progress Reducers and distribution nodes.
• The enemy pushes back with waves of various types.

[TheVampire100]

I would rather call this RTS with hero units/RPG elements (which Dota based of but is not entirely the same). I know the line is really thin, but if you've played Moba (and that quite a lot) you will see the major differences.
Otherwise we could say that Heroes of Might and Magic is just a turn-based Moba. Or Betrayal Mode in TLF is Moba. Or Anomaly is a Moba.
Defining e Genre is really hard and to be honest, I never liked the definition of "Moba" to begin with.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Big differences I can see:

• The AI doesn't take the initiative very much (Except when it decides to collect overdraft fees.  >D) -- i.e., it doesn't really try to push.
  
• "Feeding" doesn't really exist for Champions.
• Champion "builds" have way less nitty-gritty. (Select your hull, stick your chosen Light-slot module on, and take some mix of shields and some other heavy-slot module. I really wish I could use a normal build queue for this instead of having to manually click every slot)
• Gameplay is more emergent than MOBAs, as opposed to being formalized (in the vein of "you're support, so you go share the bottom lane, and don't take too many kills. You're the jungler, go kill things in the jungle." and so on)
The only one of those four that I don't like so much is what feels like the lack of depth and choices in Champion growth and builds.

[TheVampire100]

Well, compared to a Moba you really have much of a difference,e specially since the different shadow vessel types have already different roles/functions slapped on them.
Neinzul Shadow Vessel is heavily focused on carriers, Spire more on shields and railguns.

[Aklyon]

Spire champ is more focused on giant deathbeams (or lots of shields if you haven't gotten photon lances yet) than railguns, though it does use them.

[kasnavada]

Now that I think of it, even with multiple players, it makes me think of tower defence games where you play a hero, like sanctum. Only with mobs on your side. I think I really see "opposing" team  as the main part of a MOBA and not the mob mechanics .

[Radiant Phoenix]

So you would need enemy champions that:

• You have reason to hunt down and kill.
• Interfere with your operations, at least in AI space.
• Engage in border aggression sometimes.

... wait, isn't this just Special Forces with Champions instead of Riot Control Starships, and maybe with some sort of reward for killing them?

[Captain Jack]

I think I have a different problem with the Nebulae. Most of the later scenarios are nearly impossible with a single player, regardless of how much time you devote to it away from your empire. They're legitimately hard independent of how much micro you give them. The early ones are time consuming but you have margins for error unless you're playing a lightning game. The later ones are not only time consuming but incredibly unforgiving, where the slightest error in your battle plan or loadout results in a loss regardless of how long it takes the allied starbases to die. And that's when the enemies don't gain the upper hand before you can even get involved.

Even with the difficulty scaling up, having a second champion involved in any fashion makes it dramatically easier, and three champions makes it easier again.

Anyway, not offering solutions to the Champion/Nebula problem here, just explaining my beef with them.

[Radiant Phoenix]

Nebulas were a bit of a PITA back when I used them.

Then we got Alt Champ Progress and I never used them again.

[Pumpkin]

I think I've made a monster. Sweet.

And now I turned your nice monster into an horrible nightmare. I'm so sorry; the moba-thing is all my fault. God knows I didn't mean to do that.