The discussion of licensing techs made me think of the possibility of leasing your inactive shipyards to allies or weaker factions that you would like to prop up.

One of the things that interests me is improving interaction between the various factions beyond the vanilla treaties and alliances that are rather boring to me. The purpose of alliances at present are nothing more than another way to win the game. Your allies are not compelled to join you in wars and you are not compelled to join them. I know there are ways to manipulate this by bribery and gifting ships but this all seems artificial and adds no flavor to the game if I have to bribe an ally to honor a treaty.

In addition to requiring that allies join together when war is declared, allow leasing of shipyards and some transfer of production to the ally in lieu of combat when distance and range are a factor. It would be similar to our assistance to the UK in WWII before we entered the war. At some point I usually shut down some shipyards if I am far enough ahead so the leasing would not be a problem for me.

Just throwing it on the wall, running it up the flag pole, as it were.