Philosophy of the Second Edition Campaign Rules;

Rule 1 Space and Time
this comes out of the need to give more space for expansion with other players and to deal with the dispersion/concentration issue. It also moves away from the previously simplistic approach to unassigned worlds in favour of a model where people will think a bit about whether they're going to attack rather than co-exist; when you can get the income benefit of the world without invading it, players will be less likely to launch strike forces at neutral and more likely to skirmish, which is what we've been trying to get to.

Rule 2 Economics + Rule 10 Trade
Between them these two rules are intended to create a more realistic income model which will give direct incentives to operate patrols and escorts instead of vast strike forces. Since on average you need 1.7 credits to run 100 points of fleet, the model is built to give roughly 80 credits worth of income per week from your starting allocation of worlds, or about 13.3 on average per world. Because we've moved to a weekly budget, the base numbers are lower. They're also affected by the fact that trade is needed to make the most of the income; if you don't trade among your worlds and with other players, you won't have enough money to cover costs.

You're restricted to one trading partner per world for a couple of reasons. The first is that although there probably won't be that many worlds which could readily trade with more than one partner, it would be messy figuring out the links if it was made possible. The second is that it gives more incentives for trade warfare if only one person can have the benefit of trading with any given world.

Rule 3 Logistics
These rules are intended to give a more realistic supply model without creating too much of a burden on players and and the referee. Players will have to work out the weekly operations cost of each design, but this is a pretty simple calculation. Under the old system, average cost per week of a ship was 5 credits (this being roughly a heavy cruiser). Under the new system, cost per week is the same. The supply tonnage is 1 credit per ton. A standard 100 ton fleet auxiliary costing 193 points can carry 56 tons, or enough for eleven heavy cruisers for one weeks, or for the same number of frigates for five weeks, or five capital ships for a week or one capital ship for five weeks. It looks initially as if weaponry supply requirements are lax (in that you don't have to pay weapon maintenance if you don't fight), but they amount to half of the supply requirements for the average force; the resupply requirements for weaponry after a fight are the same as the resupply for two weeks of non combat operations. Weaponry costs is a flat rate, regardless of actual consumption of power and/or ordnance. Essentially it assumes that the cost of delivering X amount of hurt is pretty much invariant; what beam weapons save on materials cost, they waste on fuel and constant adjustments, and so on. It also means that weapons which cost more to install cost more to run. Generally, the more weapon heavy a ship is, the greater the cost burden of running it

Rule 6 Interdiction and Commerce raiding
These rules are intended to make commerce raiding worthwhile mostly as a way of annoying the other player, but tempting when you're short of resources and can't trade for them. The actual income from commerce raiding isn't likely to pay for the trouble involved, but the nuisance effect for the other player may be enough to make him commit resources once there's more than one commerce raider in a system. Note that pirates are commerce raiders controlled by the umpire. I am open to arguments to increase the take from commerce raiding so that it really hurts, but a significant increase would make it indistinguishable from interdiction.

Rule 7 Offensive operations
These rules were written with two objectives in mind. Firstly, they meet some of the criticisms about the old abstract system for attacking worlds that belonged to players. Secondly they ought to force players to start making serious investments in dedicated assault ships. In both scenarios the intention is to make it labour intensive to attack a planet. Ground assault will take weeks to succeed unless overwhelming force is used, and attacking to destroy will use up prodigious volumes of supply, with each individual attack using the same amount of materiel as five normal combat turns.

Rule 8 System defences.
The numbers had to be changed to meet the new income levels, but the outcomes should be broadly similar.

Rule 9 Reconstruction
If you've got destruction, you have to have reconstruction. I considered, but decided against, a discount scheme for reinstating orbital defences.

Rule 15
Note the significant decrease in dummy markers. Essentially, we had so many of them that they made for clutter above and beyond any game utility. Now most counters will not be dummies, although they might just be weasel boats.

Rule 17 Attacking fleets
Basically, this just strips out a lot of crap in an effort to avoid stupid battles of disengagement where one side is completely overmatched by the other. Now players simply decide whether they're in or out, and once they're in, they're committed. I thought about pursuit battles, but the reality is that by the time the attacking force could close to the withdrawing force, they'd have FTL'd out.