+1 from me as well, so I am inclined to wait until combat has been implemented. That said, I fear that combat might end lacking in diversity, if the current combat and support modules are all we get, to specialise our fleets.

Yes, this has merits.  Perhaps ships with only a single hit point left should need to be towed into dock; otherwise or until then, a badly damaged ship would just drift until someone uses it for target practice.

I made a request along these lines in one of the dev feeds and at that moment Paul stated that they had purposely chosen to not implement it, because they thought that having a high production shipyard at the front lines would be vulnerable and that players would view it as a restriction.

They were first going to overhaul the ship repair system, and after that they might look at something like this.

I completely agree. It doesn't make sense to allow ships to upgrade without a planet or stardock.

It works somewhat that way to some extent.

When you pay an upgrade fee, you are basically paying the nearest friendly star base / shipyard to make the repair.  If the nearest shipyard is not your own, then the fee should go to which ever civlization owns it.   It could be a feature of being part of the UP.    The ships of technicians who come to do the repairs are virtual.

Perhaps, the ship upgrade system should show you the closest 8 starbases, with the cost and upgrade time displayed as well as the civilization it belongs to.

If you are foolish to choose a starbase of a civ you are at war with for repairs, they could charge extra and sabotage your ship.

A Starbase / Shipyard is basically an artificial oasis in the desert of space.  The ability to repair ships should be part of every star base.