I have a character with her own base. its just a transporter room and a big room. Rent is under 600 prestige. Make an alt SG, with a simple RP base. Save your main SG prestige for when you are ready to use it.
IMO rent should scale to how much prestige you earned that month, not tax the snot out of everything. Or, better still, let people have a base. When they want to start putting things in that use energy and control, then start charging rent.
My understanding is it's some sort of prestige 'sink' to prevent an over abundance of prestige in order to keep raids fair.
