If you go to an AI planet, lose your fleet, but complete an important objective that results in a lot of husks of large AI objectives, then hooray you scored yourself a metal bonus to make the refleeting faster. That in turn makes for some more nuanced decisions of what you target first on AI planets: the little guys shooting you, or the big things that will score you metal if you get them. Depends on if you’re taking multiple runs at the planet, kinda.
I think this is great because it encourages a continuous progression through the game. Basically, the kind of targets which grant you a boost of metal are like the same kind of targets which will increase your AIP significantly.
So while the game becomes harder, the player is compensated with the ability to refleet quickly, and progress to the next objective where, if successful, will be rewarded again. In this fashion, the pace of the game can be handled at a much greater rate.
However, I'm concerned that this mechanic still does not prevent stalemates. If the player loses their fleet, but does not complete an important objective, nothing is stopping them from rebuilding their fleet the
long way. If the AI had no incentive to take advantage of this glaring weakness in the player's defense, and the AIP was not rising during the time the player was rebuilding, there would essentially be no punishment for losing your fleet except being bored to death for the time it takes to rebuild it.
In other words, with the current system I do like the rewards, but perhaps we still need to work out a way that the AI can be smart about taking advantage of a player's mistakes.
