Vespae VI - Tick 12, Cycle 0

Half way through the first cycle and Ktoc has missed one set of turns. In other news it turns out my eastward wormhole has a Binary star on the other end.

Strategic

• I've captured a Black hole on my south-western border and can see Inerz fleet movements. Inerz has what I'd consider a light-threat 40 ships (about 50% of their ships, but logistically I'd expect it to be more like 33/40%) on stars bordering me. I'm watching this.  

• I made a waypoint error and forgot to send a ship through the wormhole to the Brettna-Arcon (eastward) wormhole on the first turn but corrected that for the second only to find a 146 NR binary star there. This is an asset, if it doesn't get me into a war. This means this wormhole has an Asteroid Field on one end and a Binary star on the other. Jeez.

• I'm joint top of the leaderboard on account of prioritising expansion first. Still executing my plan of capturing the stars I circled in the last update.

• I'm probably a bit light on economy this cycle (just 135/500 to spend) getting some initial science/industry in play so I'm going to really try very hard next cycle to invest as much as possible in Economy and rebalance. Everyone except CRISPR/LimitingFactor have less Ind/Science than me and apart from Vik Ia nobody has nearly as many carriers. I do wonder if I sometimes go to big on carriers out the opening in the 8p setup. They all feel necessary but at this stage 8 carriers is 40% of my total budget. That's a lot.

Diplomatic

• I've been a bit lazy diplomatically this game juggling work and other galaxies so need to work a bit harder. Have tentative proposals for alliances with Inerz and CRISPR but not a clear view of which way I want to lean there. I'm actually wondering whether Innoble/LimitingFactor may be better alliance choices with a view of keeping at peace with the neighbour on the other flank and squeezing between us. I will explore this more.

Tactical

• Now that Bubblegum has spent their specialist tokens (see section below) I can relax, there will be no immediate colonel/general attack through the wormhole.
• Inerz can't attack me with the majority of their border fleets until they get Hyperspace 2 and use a Pathfinder, or if they invest in an Explorer. 
• If CRISPR has sent an explorer to the same star I've sent a pathfinder too I'll beat him to it and retain the star as I'm dropping 8 ships there before continuing south.
• I basically have 3 'fronts' to defend. a) the eastward wormhole binary star. b) the northward wormhole at my end c) the south western inerz front which is surprisingly armed. Luckily all three of these fronts are 'fairly' close together so hopefully the ships can be a bit multi-purpose

Specialists (neighbours-ish)

• I've hired Explorer Ant and Pathfinder Seagull & Pathfinder Robin. My specialist priorities are a Colonel & Infiltrator for both wormholes in the short term, with a Saboteur and maybe General/Destroy later replacing them releasing the other specialists for other duties.
• Bubblegum has hired 5 star specialists. A mix of mineral extractors/orbital arrays. This is great news and means they have no big firepower on the other end of the wormhole.
• CRISPR has 1 carrier specialist and 2 star specialists, neither of which are space docks. I suspect this is a Explorer heading south west towards me and two Mineral Extractors or one and an Orbital Array.
• Inerz has no specialists and 5 specialist tokens saved up.
• Innoble has 3 carrier specialists (likely pathfinders) and 1 star specialist.