[Taqwus]

Your best bet might be diplomacy and betrayal -- with five players, it might be possible to forge a 3 on 2 or a 2 on 1, or with a combination of actual Messages and comm mimics to get two players to fight each other. And if somebody allies with you, take full note of any information you get as a result.

At the point you're at, my suspicion is that offense wins in terms of fleet battles. The capability to build self-sufficient (including resupply, repair, sensors and construction, sweeping, stellar manipulation) fleets can move rapidly through the quadrant, ignoring defending fleets if desired. Unless you raised the per-sector minefield limit, you can also bring enough sweepers to neutralize them. If both sides go for offensive fleet warfare, the damage to each other's planets, and hence their economies, may be fairly drastic. The maintenance-free player has a significant advantage in this type of war...

Against normal baseships, given that you have extra speed I wouldn't forsee that much of a problem given that your ships should be able to maintain maximum range, which will mean that your combat bonuses matter more (as will the baseship's defense penalty). Shield depleters + shard cannon + HEM might be a fairly 'normal' crystalline design for fighting at range 7-8. And maximize experience w/ training centers and PDCs (IIRC, you get XP for destroying missiles/fighters).

Incidentally, I'd probably omit cloaking, because your opponents probably use sensors, either on ships or in satellites.



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-- The thing that goes bump in the night