Thank you for reporting this, I will check it out.


*Update*
The issue reproduces, thank you for posting!  

yup just duplicated it in 6.2 also

*sssshhhhh* This dont need fixing! It rewards the player for very careful planning

Just had this happen, but got 7 planets, not 6.

I originally played with a 16 planet, then tried the bread basket start, which was a nice start.  But with all of the techs that allow you to cultivate bad tiles, I figured a 3 planet start nets you the most tiles overall, so gave it a try.  On my second 3 planet start, I didn't colonize the 2 bonus planets right away because you don't get ideology points for them.  And eventually ended up with 7 sponsors on my home shipyard.

If you don't colonize any system before you build a starbase right away. This works for any system you colonize only one planet.

I agree with larsenex. Never did the math. But unless your colonizing every planet in every system you find. With every planet by each other this is probably not better due to shipyard decay. I always lose that extra planet. It might work better with more shipyards though.