My current campaign is running slow at the moment, primarily because the Sol system has well over two hundred ships all being detected by five different races. Also because there is a huge number of civilian ships in the game, including NPRs, and because a lot of them have nothing to do, they are being checked for possible trade runs and contracts every increment. Most of the time this isn't really a problem but at the moment I am fighting a battle and even a 5 second increment is taking 10-20 seconds. Therefore I have introduced a very powerful but easily abused SM tool for the next version (currently v5.02) - the Space-Time Bubble!
It is very simple to use. You simply designate a system as being in a Space-Time Bubble by clicking a checkbox. Because of the powerful nature of the Space-Time Bubble this box will uncheck if you change systems or close the map. While a system is in the Space-Time Bubble, everything else in the universe will freeze in place and the only activity in the universe will take place in the Bubble. Elsewhere, ships will remain in place, so will missiles and mass driver packets and system bodies, etc. No detection will take place and no fuel will be used. The universe is reduced to the single system in the bubble. Time still passes in the universe as a whole but no one is aware of it. The time that passes does not count against fuel use, or reactor endurance, or even the 5-day increment clock. Contacts won't be lost outside the bubble because no one is checking to see if they are lost. No 5-day increment can happen while a bubble is in effect. When a 5-day increment it does happen, any time that passed while a bubble is active will not count toward production time. All transit orders will fail if a fleet tries to leave the bubble.
Obviously this should be used with extreme care. The intended situation for which you should use the bubble is when the game is running slow for some reason and you are fighting a battle with tiny increments. The amount of time for the battle isn't going to matter in the great scheme of things so isolating that system from the rest of the universe while you quickly resolve the immediate action should have minimal impact.
If you do encounter any strange bugs after using this function, please, please mention you used it when reporting the bug.
Steve