[geoschmo]

One thing that just occured to me with the fixed income game. Since Resource production would be indepenadant of your planets, your empire wouldn't be hamstrung by unhappy populations anymore. As long as you keep them from going totally rioting on you they will keep building stuff. And your bases can build even if all your planets are rioting.

In this kind of game you could play a true Pirate or Nomadic race with no planets at all, without any extra modifications to the data files and have a viable chance at winning.

A bunch of bases hidden in a nebulae could support your fleet. At least until the other guys came along and removed the nebulae.

This is more intersting the more I think about it.

Geoschmo