For now, I think this is off the table. It just raises way too many potential balance issues, as others brought up in that thread, and it's something that gets into that territory of "the game playing itself" for me.
In most circumstances, losing so many planets should not be a routine thing. Sure, it happens sometimes -- otherwise the AI wouldn't be doing its job. But if it's happening more than every few hours, then either it's a matter of a very high difficulty or else inadequate defenses.
In a lot of senses, there is a tradeoff between how much you keep for your offensive fleet, and how much you use for defense. If you pour everything into offense, expect to lose a lot of planets routinely and have that added time cost of rebuilding, etc, that you're describing. That's more than a time cost, it also costs you resources and opportunity and so on.
If you don't like having to rebuild, build a more modest offensive fleet while having heavier and more concentrated defenses. That, rather than an automated system for rebuilding, is my suggestion to those that have this issue.
Well, X has closed the issue. The distraction of constantly rebuilding is still a game breaker for me, so I'll have to stick to the more traditional strategies of hiding behind a super choke-point and not expand so loosely - although expanding loosely is viable, it just ends up taking to many hours of rebuilding and baby-sitting. It's a matter of player inconvenience rather than poor strategy.
One thing I find funny though: Pretend the discussion was about whether to allow turrets to be auto-rebuilt (as is currently the case). X's response fits perfectly in that context as well, saying that "auto-rebuilding turrets is the game playing itself, you shouldn't be losing turrets that often, defend more if needed." The central argument being that the game plays itself, but there are many aspects of this game where it plays itself already - just look at control nodes, auto-rebuilding turrets, and FRD mode.
I am glad the game plays itself in these contexts. It would only take a few seconds to issue an attack order every time a few enemies wander into your space, but the game does it automatically with FRD. It would only take a few seconds to replace destroyed turrets by hand, but the game does it automatically. It would only take a few seconds to look over your planets and make sure all your engineers are in FRD mode, but the game does this automatically with a control option. I'm glad the game "plays itself" in these contexts, as I'm not distracted, and can focus on more enjoyable parts of the game.
I don't see how rebuilding a command station is different. It's equally distracting and yet trivially easy. The common play style is to hide behind a super-defense so you can avoid the tedious micro involve in rebuilding. That's a fine strategy, but not the only viable strategy. My loose boarders are perfectly able to stop attacks, but I do lose a single station every now and then, because I haven't super-fortified a single planet. Just like replacing turrets, replacing command station only takes a few easy seconds, but it's distracting and I don't enjoy it.
I guess I'll leave the matter by asking: Does anyone (Draco?) actually enjoy rebuilding command stations? When I start the game I'm excited to see if I can finally capture that ARS, or defeat the mark IV planet. Are there some who start the game excited to rebuild command stations right next to planets they already control (with no enemy AI around)? Some have already expressed an opinion that this is not fun, and so say take away the non-fun task, let the game play itself.
