Having a serious psychological struggle between my physical attraction to her and my severe arachnophobia <| sep |> They still have worth as traps and ablative damage . You can force a fleet to enter a system where you want them to , say , right on top of your fleet so your maximum armament can unload at the same time , or augment your fleet to destroy a more powerful foe . You can string systems of stations to cause gradual ablative damage to add up as fleets work their way inwards . I certainly don ' t use them a lot , but they have a purpose . Of course the second point goes right out the window on nonhyperlane games , but they can still work if used to augment defenses and early warnings on planetary targets . I rarely play to the point of hundreds of thousands of fleet power anyway , due to boredom or frustration .