Every Gravity Well asks you the same question: what do you need here?
Taking a Gravity Well is the easy part. A fleet jumps in, clears out resistance, and for a moment the space is yours. But empty space doesn't win wars. What you build after the fighting stops is where the real strategy lives.
The choice
Every Gravity Well has one slot for a major structure. One slot, three options: Military Station for defense, Mining Station for economy, or Shipyard for production. They're mutually exclusive. Pick one chain and the other two are locked out for that Gravity Well. Forever.
This is the decision that gives each Gravity Well its identity. A Gravity Well with a Military Station is a fortress. One with a Mining Station is an economic engine. One with a Shipyard is a forward production base. Smaller structures like Supply Nodes, Listening Posts, Tactical Ops Centers, Defense Platforms, and Supply Depots are separate and don't compete for the major slot. But the big choice, the one that shapes how a Gravity Well fits into your operation, comes down to one pick from three.
Holding the line
The Military Station is the toughest thing you can build. Heavy weapons, layered shields, sensor coverage for the entire Gravity Well. Expensive, slow to construct, and once it's standing the enemy has a real problem. You can't raid past it. You can't ignore it during an assault. Breaking a Military Station III requires a committed attack force, and while the enemy is spending time and ships on your station, your fleet can be doing something else.
One thing to be clear about: the Military Station is not a victory condition. You lose when all your Mobile Shipyards are destroyed, not your stations. It's a defensive tool, nothing more. But a good one. Parking your Mobile Shipyard behind a Military Station in a well-connected Gravity Well is one of the safest setups in the game.
The trade-off is everything else you don't get. That Gravity Well won't have a Mining Station boosting your income or a Shipyard building reinforcements. Pure defense, no production, no economic boost. It only makes sense in Gravity Wells where position matters more than output.
Feeding the machine
Mining Stations don't produce Supply on their own. They amplify the output of every Supply Node in the same Gravity Well by a percentage that grows with each upgrade tier. In a Gravity Well with dense asteroid coverage, that boost is substantial. In a sparse Outpost with barely any rocks, it's wasted.
This ties directly into the map. An Industrial Gravity Well packed with asteroid positions is the ideal home for a Mining Station, and every player looking at the map knows it. The strategic question isn't whether to build one there, it's whether you can defend it. Mining Stations have no weapons. Shields, but no guns. If a raiding force shows up and your fleet is elsewhere, the station survives long enough for you to notice, maybe, but it can't fight back.
Building forward
Shipyards solve a problem that becomes obvious once you're fighting on multiple fronts: the Mobile Shipyard can only be in one place at a time. A stationary Shipyard in a Gravity Well near the action means fresh ships arrive faster, without your MS having to travel. The chain goes through three tiers, unlocking heavier ship classes at each step, mirroring the Mobile Shipyard's production capability.
At the top of the chain sits the Capital Shipyard, the fourth tier. It requires a Shipyard III already in place and replaces it. Once operational, it produces capital ships and new Mobile Shipyards. Getting there is a serious investment across all four tiers in the same Gravity Well. Losing that Gravity Well after building a Capital Shipyard is one of the most painful things that can happen in a match.
There's another benefit I've grown to appreciate in testing: once a Shipyard is built in a Gravity Well, it acts as a permanent builder for that location. Any structure in the same Gravity Well can be constructed without the Mobile Shipyard being present. This frees the MS to push forward and expand into new territory while your established Gravity Wells handle their own infrastructure. I didn't plan this interaction from the start, but it turned out to be one of the more satisfying parts of the expansion loop.
The supporting cast
Not every structure competes for the major slot. Supply Depots increase your global Supply stockpile cap, one per Gravity Well. Tactical Ops Centers raise your Command Point cap, letting you field more ships. Listening Posts are cheap early warning sensors you scatter at Gravity Well edges to spot incoming jumps. Defense Platforms come in two sizes and add firepower to a Gravity Well without requiring the major slot.
None of these are flashy. All of them matter. A Gravity Well with a Listening Post at the border buys you seconds of warning when the enemy jumps in. A Tactical Ops Center in a safe rear Gravity Well quietly enables a larger fleet. Supply Depots keep your stockpile from hitting the ceiling during an economic boom.
Reading the map
After a few matches, you start reading the map through structures. A Gravity Well with a Mining Station III tells you the player invested heavily in economy there. One with a Military Station on a chokepoint says they're planning to hold that route. An empty Gravity Well with nothing built in it is either unexplored, contested, or a gap in someone's defense you can exploit.
I like that. The map becomes a record of every strategic decision you've made, and the enemy can read it as clearly as you can. Whether every placement feels like a meaningful choice or whether certain builds end up being obviously correct in every situation, I'll find out with more testing.