Come on dude <| sep |> If you find yourself in this situation in future it is worth making fortress flowers around your essential worlds and choke points if the enemies use hyperlane tech . If they choose to attack your fortresses then have your fleet there to back them up , they ' re not going to win by themselves against a powerful fleet but they ' re excellent force enhancers . Really you need to watch out for snowballing federations in the early game if you can , if you see a federation forming on one side of you then devote a ton of resources to either joining them or making friends with people on the other side and forming an alliance or federation of your own . <| sep |> Those people are the worst . I might bulkorder a few dozen ultracheap earbuds , so I can throw them at these people . Possibly with a little handwritten Courtesy . Show some . note attached .