I'm considering a big gamble... one of my neighbors has been inactive for a week now. Right near one of my conquered homeworlds he has a cluster of huge planets, with half a dozen having 10 million people or more, and active matter synths on most of them. No planetary defense systems are in place, so I will send a bunch of blackbirds to figure out if and how many war fleets he has in the area. If it proves to be a viable endeavor, I will build war fleets and conquer a bunch of these big worlds. If I succeed, I would become a regional superpower...
Build the war fleet as well and sit it outside his planets. If your Blackbirds confirm they're empty, swoop in immediately and take them.
You'll want to do this fairly quickly as I'm sure other players have noticed this too.
EDIT: Ouch, Military Base, Planetary Defence and Slingshot all went inactive today. Mind Control has just finished so I'll stay at this amount of food loss for now. Population has gone back up so I'm getting the cash in that I need. I just wish it told me how much cash goes on food so that I could plan out my upgrades a little better >.<
