The Legacy of Romulus and Delta Rising updates brought a lot of new content and crafting into the game endie. As such, along with the fleet holdings, the game is leaps ahead of it's launch iteration.
Our fleet alone has a star base at tier 4 with Di mine, Embassy and Spire at tier 3 ... almost 4. Once a fleet gets into the star base, upgrades to our ships are cheaper and stronger. And the new release of Fleet Admiral ranks and tier 6 ship's has improved the game imensly, imho.