The Scenario

Ten years ago a small fleet of freighters left your home world in a quest to find new worlds to colonize. Half way through your journey you lost all contact with fleet command. You then begin to fear the worst, a full scale galactic war may have broken out and your small fleet may be the last of your race.

You left home with four very special ships that were equipped with tech 17 Bussard Ramscoops which gather low grade matter from the interstellar medium and converts it to antimatter fuel. The tech 17 Bussard Ramscoop Ramscoop Fuel Ships served you well until you lost the last one a year ago when the final cobalt-lanthanide-boronite fractionator coil (CLBF  coil) burnt out, your fleet was then forced to make the rest of the journey burning low grade neutronic fuel. Your fleet finally arrived at your  goal, the small Echo open star cluster on the outer tip of third major arm of the Milky Way. This open cluster contains 500 planets that are all named after the stars from your home star sectors.

The  last  fuel base you passed is over 7000 light years away and you are unable to build new CLBF coils. In fact, the only know source of CLBF coils is small super high tech research station ran by a group of Andromedians near the galactic core 30000  light  years away. The coils are shipped to all the major homeworlds by  Endoane traders. A shipment of supplies which included 20 new CLBF coils was following one year behind your fleet until it was lost to an unknown band of pirates. The highest  tech level ever achieved by your race has been tech 10, so it is really very unlikely that you will ever be able to build any CLBF coils on your own. Unless you reestablish contact with your homeworld or a supply shipment shows up you can regard this as a one way mission.

Upon arrival at the first world you came to all your starships were landed on the planet's surface to be converted into raw materials for the building of mineral mines , factories and one low tech starbase. A small local system freighter and a small capital ship were built when your starbase was completed.

You soon learn that you are not alone. Moving across your starcharts are enemy races that have followed you to this star cluster. You must now put every effort into building the most powerful fleet of war ships possible before you are attacked. Your best hope is to send small freighters in every direction to drop off colonists and supplies so that they can grow in numbers on new planets and extract the minerals that your starbase needs to build more ships.

You need to act fast because your enemies will most likely be trying to expand also. Pay close attention to the starchart, because you can  see  your  enemy's  ships  as  they travel between planets. 

Good luck.