I have all of the SE series from 1 to 5 and I was a beta tester for 5. It does get a bit boring if you keep playing the base game right out of the box. To help break that up and make the game more enjoyable you should try to download and install one of the game modifications (called Mods) which make changes to the game. These changes can range from minor tweaks to better game balance all the way up to entire changes in play. The basic mechanics remain the same so you don't have to learn the basic operations over when applying a major mod. If you want to install a mod you may need to download the component enhancement pack which greatly increases the images used for stellar objects, planet facilities, and ship components. All of this is free so don't fret about it. I had been working on a Starfire Mod but ended up dropping the project due to lack of community support, concerns that Marvin may come across the mod and cry copyright infringement, and most of all because of the complexity of getting the AI scripted to use the Starfire ship components correctly. I got as far as creating two initial versions which needed testing. The first was a full blown Starfire like game and the second was more of a hybrid Starfire and Space Empires mod. I almost forgot. There are different ship sets which you can download. Each ship set has all the models needed to play and they can be used with the base game or any game mod you may download. I have seen ones for Babylon 5, Star Wars, and Star Trek just to name a few.