Think I found an obscure shipyard issue. Past a certain distance, sponsor planets give a minimum 1 Manufacturing point. In Govern under Adjust Production Spending I set Military Manufacturing to 0%, then hit Reset all planets to use global spending. This properly set all sponsors for the shipyard to 0 Mfg - *except* for the distant planets which remained at 1 point.
Not exactly a massive exploit; but even distant planets should probably only give 1 Mfg as sponsors especially if the close-by sponsors give 0.
- jeff