The New Solari Empire
We're about 20 years in, and moving cautiously. Nine systems lie within two jumps of Sol, and we've surveyed and gate-linked all nine. None have worlds habitable with other than the usual 0.334atm of terraforming. No sign yet of any extrasolar intelligence.
The biggest difference between the New Solari Empire and the one that came before is economic: We're laser-focused on managing our ramp-up properly. We keep only a tiny amount of cash on hand, taking care to spend just as fast as we can while staying barely in the black. We keep almost all our people employed by prioritizing construction that employs workers( factories, research labs, financial centres) over stuff that doesn't (ship components, automated mines) whenever there are more than a couple million unemployed.
We've also invested much more heavily, earlier, in economic technology (construction rate, research rate) than the earlier, more militaristic Solari Empire which made only token advancements in Construction & Production before pushing all-in on weapons research.
We've also developed far more fuel refining capacity, and more efficient engines. The Old Solari Empire didn't run into a fuel crisis, but they spied one on the distant horizon and didn't like the shape of it. The New Solari Empire will be swimming in fuel, always and forever.
We're employing many fewer, much larger civilian ships. Our terraformers have four times as many modules as the previous empire's. Our freighters carry five times as much freight, and our sorium harvesters collect about five times as much. The fewer-ships thing is driven by aesthetics and economics, and also a faint, if superstitious hope that fewer ships might result in quicker turn generation in the late game.
The current fleet is five 16,000-ton anti-ship missile cruisers of 40 size-5 launchers each, with three more under construction, and six 16,000-ton anti-missile cruisers with 40 size-1 launchers each. This is a departure from previous fleet doctrine; we used to make 8,000-ton antimissile frigates. We're doing this to conserve shipyard resources: While these ships are too dissimilar to build from the same shipyard, they're near enough to one another that retooling between the two types costs very little and takes only a few months. We'll add a second 16,000-ton military yard when the economy permits. For now, this one's getting the job done just fine.
Luna's atmosphere has just become breathable and will be our first off-world colony. Luna is mineral-poor. While shifting minerals from Earth to Luna is cost-free, it's tedious to manage the details, so our plan is to first use luna for tasks that require no minerals (financial centres, research) and then those that require few minerals (refineries) while keeping the industries that require broad & heavy mineral use (shipyards, construction factories, ordnance factories) on Earth.
As of this writing, we haven't chosen a new site for the terraformers. Mars is a strong contender because of its' proximity to Earth. While the Old Solari Empire quickly spread out into nearby systems, the News prefer to massively develop the Solar system while remote-mining the outlying systems and hauling the minerals home.
