bonus pack is a MUST. especially if you have more than a handfull factories. you can operate several factories just with ONE!! trader ship.

the moskito-rocket-countermeasures is also very nice (not only for your own fighter also for your big ships later. with this rocket system you can have all batteries focusing on the enemies. no need to have few of them ordered to counter incoming missles. the moskito system handles them. my battleships carries up to 200 moskitos just for that job).

I have two mega komplexes (not that big like your reference but big enough for me - 20 to 30 factories each), and a half dozend smaller komplexes (with three to 6 factories in each). I operates them all with just and only ~12 trader ships (selling, moving stuff from one komplexe to another one, etc.).

I have a self operating economy. Just with a few traders due to the new scripts. Great stuff.