I'm kinda bummed that I've spoiled "Archers" for me since I have yet to encounter them in my own games but it's not like I can prevent myself from reading Aurora fiction. Oh well, hopefully some surprises await the Democratic People's Republic of Earth once they venture outside of Sol.

I'm little surprised how often your STO guns miss at medium-long range. Is your BFC range still in the early tech levels?

Ugh, I apologize for that.  I keep meaning to put spoiler tags on my fiction as I don't want to ruin it for people that haven't encountered them.  Honestly I kind of figured that it would be obvious at this point 

My earlier ground batteries have poor fire controls and no ECCM, so they will miss a fair amount and depend on numbers to be effective.  Later generations have better fire controls, but every once in a while I forget to check the "ECCM" button on the unit creation screen.  I usually don't notice right away, so when I do notice I figure that's the Imperial bureaucrats trying to cut costs when I'm not looking. 

Proposal: Galaxy-wide Factory Production Speed Modifier

What: Provide an option at game creation and at the game selection screen that allows the player to modify the galaxy-wide factory production modifier for all races, in the same way that research, terraforming or survey speed modifiers do currently.

How: The race information window already provides this sort of functionality, however, it is limited only to the races that the player can modify. As such, NPRs are not affected, potentially giving the player races unintended advantages. This is technical and so beyond my purview, but I presume it would be simple enough to copy the same logic that applies to the other mentioned modifiers to achieve the desired effect. Actual item costs would remain the same.

Why: Allow players to speed up (or slow down) the eXpansion side of Aurora, for both the human and NPRs, without providing an unfair advantage to the player (which can be done by changing the race-specific industrial modifier). At low-to-mid tech levels, particularly if using lowered research rates or the limited research administration option, even modest expansion can take quite a while, which is both nice in some ways and frustrating in others.

I believe that an optional modifier to expansion can provide willing players with more exciting experiences due to NPRs becoming more powerful, impactful and present in larger scales sooner or for the feeling of slow, arduous progress to be enhanced even more, if desired.

Seconded because I have no idea why this is a race modifier and not a global one.

Proposal: Galaxy-wide Factory Production Speed Modifier

What: Provide an option at game creation and at the game selection screen that allows the player to modify the galaxy-wide factory production modifier for all races, in the same way that research, terraforming or survey speed modifiers do currently.

How: The race information window already provides this sort of functionality, however, it is limited only to the races that the player can modify. As such, NPRs are not affected, potentially giving the player races unintended advantages. This is technical and so beyond my purview, but I presume it would be simple enough to copy the same logic that applies to the other mentioned modifiers to achieve the desired effect. Actual item costs would remain the same.

Why: Allow players to speed up (or slow down) the eXpansion side of Aurora, for both the human and NPRs, without providing an unfair advantage to the player (which can be done by changing the race-specific industrial modifier). At low-to-mid tech levels, particularly if using lowered research rates or the limited research administration option, even modest expansion can take quite a while, which is both nice in some ways and frustrating in others.

I believe that an optional modifier to expansion can provide willing players with more exciting experiences due to NPRs becoming more powerful, impactful and present in larger scales sooner or for the feeling of slow, arduous progress to be enhanced even more, if desired.

Pretty tense situation in Sol you have!

Some time later the apparent mass of the Delta class changed from 734 tons to 1468.  The Alphas and Bravos continued showing their mass as 733 tons, an apparent affect of their cloaking devices.  The battlecruiser’s tactical department had no theories for why the Delta was behaving in such a manner. 

This one seems like it might be a bug...

Kurt, I wonder from the player perspective how you are finding the Archers? My observation from other AARs is that they can feel repetitive after a while, especially with poor exploration luck meaning no systems with other spoilers or NPRs. Of course when playing it may not feel so repetitive and they are an excellent foil for making players defend their colonies.

Overall I'm happy with the way the campaign is going, and even though the Terrans have had really bad exploration luck so far, that just means they have hardships to overcome. 

I usually set Sol to start with an above-average number of JPs, both to improve early exploration and to get a more interesting galactic map as more branches seems to increase the chance for early loops in the JP network. 4 is my usual setting but I've done a few test runs with 6 JPs in Sol and that can be fun as well.

That being said, it's not really a Kurt AAR if Sol doesn't have only one JP!