I'm bringing a lot more than just an arc, though. My whole production. Plus a few military ships.
I'm going bottom right tail edge, more or less.
Let me put it this way. I'm sending a modest colony fleet to one of the spiral arms, I've seen several much larger fleets. My fleet consists of a few thousand arcs and about 10k of battleships. I would send a second wave, but I have to go through enemy territory now so the first wave will just have to look after itself.
Lots of the big players are looking for space to expand into and are moving to the uncolonised area's all hoping to grab up large tracts of real estate. Some have scripts pumping out arcs from their planets as fast as they can make them. If you are unlucky in the your choice of position, that is what you will be competing with.
