Any of you guys played Perpetuum?
It basically had 6 islands 3alpha (safe no PvP unless u flagged yourself for it) and 3 beta (PvP flagged automatically) now i believe they have 12 islands but anyway.
On alpha islands you had resourses to mine/harvest but in much lower quantities, one day you would mine a spot and next day or so if u went back it could potentially have gone and it would regenerate over time not necesseraly in the same spot. On beta you had same materials but in much larger quantities but also special resourses only found on beta. all these were used to build robots, weapons, ammo etc etc
I think something similar to this would work quite well obviously adapted to suit this game slightly. Corporations could also base themselves on beta island in a terminal but could be attacked by other corps (at a set period) where both would fight it out and the terminal would be up for grabs.