It was a mix of things, but the larger overall factor is that we’re on a new release cycle with code changes frozen outside of planned release dates.
Uncapping the explo limit was a companion change to Infinitum Update 2020.1, which made exploration there more restrictive:
When active, you can explore freely within a system until you have presence there, at which point you must take additional planets by force.
Both of these changes are meant to shake up explo and help us get a sense of where the underlying imbalances are. As an example of this in action, @Mrblonde has started a thread to discuss a potential solution that may change things for the better overall, with or without the explo cap. This is the exact type of response and brainstorming from players that I was hoping for.
It’s a painful process, but a useful one.
Is the explo cap a balancing mechanism, or a bandaid for an underlying problem that we’ve really never had to confront until now? 