I think all of your suggestions are awful. It would help to be more specific but most of them make me want to throw up.
Anyway the problems are that
- player who is active every turn and has no life is invulnerable
- but completely removing the scout defence would cause big players to instantly win
I'm active every turn. I still think that 99% of the players could wipe me out quite easily, unless I do nothing but scout defense then I guess I can hold off for a while with only losing a few planets. But then again, I wouldn't. What's the fun in that? I'd rather just be destroyed and get it over with.
