you don't need to make it THAT complicated to have a little bit variations in base building. Look at all those RTS games that have energy-transmitter nodes (eg. Starcraft Protos, Zerg; Earth 2160 UCS; CreeperWold).
Look at the concept art that was use for the whole gamma base coding:
http://content.perpetuum-online.com/ima … ctions.png
The only thing i saw actually beeing built, is the complex at the left center side - because its necessary for production.
The other stuff, about power-lanes for fast power transmission to a remote mining tower, with only a few defense turrets is nothing someone would build on an island that is not 100% save from intruder just shooting everything down, aside from the fact you that can power the mining tower with a Tyrannos...
Something they should think about is,
eg. making mining tower gather something slowly, and without any player interaction that is NECESSARY to run the base reactors. The more reactors you have, the more mining towers you NEED to have spread across the island. (energy credit system, helloooo!)
Defense turrets should be dangerous, and shoudl require siege equipment to be killed, that is impractical to use against moving targets (hello, mortars, hello AoE unguided ballistic missiles)
and then, those turrets should really suck power from the base reactor... not from the 100 buffer accumulators put into each and every power node.
TL;dr: limiting just how much buildings you can connect to a terminal is the laziest attempt to change something.
*Disclaimer: This post can contain strong sarcasm or cynical remarks. keep that in mind!Whining - It's amazing how fast your trivial concerns will disappear