Alright, so, that's unfortunate. Doubly so since the downside of the Alate fix could've been negated by a working Watcher shield, since it would most likely eliminate small munitions before they could strike the armour.
Anyway.
I've been working on the numbers, and currently I'm suggesting the following:
-Build up Metal & Energetics industries on our core worlds (Bravo, Charlie, and Papa). The cost to fill each world with 5 ranks of both industries (the maximum) is 6000 Metal (and other stuff, but Metal is our bottleneck). We might reduce the Energetics buildup to rank 3 or 4, if we decide we'd rather spend the Metal elsewhere.
-Build fortifications on the Liir border worlds. To build rank 1 Defence Grids on both Echo and Quebec would cost 2200 Metal. This would make them easier to defend from Liir invasions, freeing up resources for the more contentious Gaian front.
-Build fortifications on Papa, the core world that links to the two Gaian border worlds. A rank 1 Defence Grid on Papa would cost 600 1200 Metal. We only have 3 regiments on Papa, so if the Gaians are feeling daring, they could launch an invasion of Papa and probably push us back 4 sections before we can react. With a Defence Grid, we get [planet size] free defensive regiments, and boosts to defensive strength, making it much harder for Gaians to get a foothold. I'm not sure about this item, however. The Gaians would be taking a fairly big risk pushing into Papa, plus by holding troops in reserve, they'd be weakening their attempts to capture the border worlds.
-Repair the No-Fair-Fight, at a cost of 926.25 Metal (I think, I may have done the maths wrong, but it's something close to that).
-Refit the No-Fair-Fight. This cost varies, depending on what we want to do. I had drawn up plans for a fairly extensive refit that would cost around 1000 Metal, but since the Watcher is still broken, that refit plan is out. Of note, if we do all the items above this, we would be left with 60.75 Metal, so any refits will require cutting some of the things above.
-Notably, not repairing the two damaged carriers. That would cost about 600 Metal. I think we can leave them damaged for a turn.
-Produce a few carriers with PP. We have about 44k income, and 7230 carryover from last turn (that can only be spent on a carrier). Each carrier costs 7835PP, so we could build 6 at most. I think we might want to only build 2 or 3, though, and put the rest into our black market tech bid.
As you can see, there's plenty to think about just in terms of production, I haven't put a lot of thought into strategy yet. Here's the basics:
Obviously we want to drop the troops waiting above Bravo on Tango, which means sending a fleet to protect them- possibly the one at Sierra?
I think the Sierra fleet should do quite well versus anything the Gaians or Liir throw at it- the second cruiser gives it a lot more firepower-, but it isn't as big as it could be. It's currently at a command cost of 60CP, and our max is 75 (that's a base of 15, plus 60 from the Queen's Directive), so we could fit two more destroyers or a cruiser in there.
The fleet at Quebec is slightly bigger than the fleet at Echo was, but it would still probably not do too well versus the Liir, assuming they have another fleet similar to (or larger than) the one that they sent to Echo ready to move on Quebec- so the Quebec fleet needs to either be reinforced, or moved.
So, if we expect there to be a big fleet waiting for us in Tango, then we should probably send the Sierra fleet there, split off two destroyers from the Quebec fleet and send them along too, and send the rest of the Quebec fleet home. We might have to play it safe, since this is the last turn that we'd be guaranteed to prevent the Gaians from capping Tango; it's impossible (short of them having a Speed 3 bore drive, which I doubt) for them to already have 10/10 control, but they could be at 8/10 (and thus just about to cap it). On the other hand, doing this would leave us with no fleets above any other world, basically. There's an argument for leaving the Sierra fleet where it is, to prevent the Gaians from landing reinforcements, and sending only the Quebec fleet to Tango... I dunno.
The fleet at Echo needs to come home for repairs, as does the one at Oscar, obviously. We can't really afford to build a new command cruiser this turn, so we can't really send out a new fleet.
So, thoughts? Anything I missed?