I am all for automatic defenses for various readons. Giving advantages to defenders and bases. Allowing territory controll.
DU can also take inspiration from other games with years of experience. For example EVE online. One way of defending of structures are vulnerability windows dependent on structure size. Idea is that the structure is invulnerable except for defined time intervals. Like this the owner of the structure has to choose a time when they are vulnerable but at times they like. Avoiding the situation that the owners base will be taken just because everyone was offline. As the station gets bigger also the vulnerability window does.
