Successful streamlining

I think I got TtSR figured out - the harvesters move automatically after every player turn like before (though with a simpler movement path with fewer decision points), and the fighters start in the middle of the board but don't get automatic moves unless a player ends their turn in an adjacent space.

I did a solo test today with this, plus a simplified decision tree for which AI deck to draw from for the aliens, plus tech advancement being based on shooting down alien ships instead of spending actions and energy (these were both suggestions from players in last week's test game).  To really stress test it, I used all five player factions, which I haven't done before.  And it worked.  There was a lot less work at the end of each player turn, but the aliens still felt threatening since they were hovering in the middle of the board instead of all the way back by the mothership.  There were tough decisions around what "players" should do at different times because addressing one threat would mean letting another one go, and around what order the players should go in so the aliens wouldn't be playing a long string of Attack cards at the end of the round (which hurt a lot when it did happen).  And there were interesting opportunities to strategize around the new rules, like when I was able to pull a lone fighter into a ridiculous trap.  The game ended with a human victory after four full rounds, which felt like enough.  During that time there were enough ups and downs that it felt tense more often than not and the victory felt well earned.  So yeah, I'm pretty happy with the core structure of the game now.

I still have a lot of fine tuning to do though.  Biggest things that stood out to me today were that I don't love the current rule for how the mothership defends itself from attacks, and I need to change how random direction of movement gets decided (at least rearranging the icons on the board that I'm currently using, but maybe I'll even think of something better than that).  Probably also going to want to make some more tweaks to the tech options.  And I'll see what else pops out at me with further testing with other people.  But for now I think I'm in a good place to commit to making a physical copy, as soon as I update the image files to match what I did today.  PAXU is only 14½ weeks away...