I had a very early Nova situation happen to me in the game I just played. I needed around 800 RP with two turns left (and my colony only putting out 150 odd RPs per turn). I ended up shifting 3/4 of my population off the colony and changing spending to savings for those two turns.
Oh, and did I mention how beautiful it is to be able to score dead worlds simply by being the first to find an artifacts planet? In my previous game, I got two artifacts planets right next to home. One of which gave me dead colony technology. The next world I scouted was a rich dead world
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