Is the Ark removed from the game? I was thinking that Ark could be used as some sort of alternate victory condition - like if the ai progress gets too high and you start fighting a highly defensive war, then the ark is "unlocked" (think like a wonder from Age of empires), which serves as a vessel to travel to a new dimension / galaxy where the ai can't follow?
I'm imagining a scenario where you royally screw up, and you need to get every piece of scrap - send raiding parties to technology centres - do relentless hacking to get data - all for the technology to build the ark? What do you guys think?
EDIT: Inspired from home world 2 - the first scenario, when the mothership was built, and there was a desperate fight to escape