Hmmmmm... I just beat the VL with AR, VL on Vicious.... it was a great game, but I still won in the end. Yeah, the VL titan is amazing, but so it the AR's "Angel of Death".... and with the Advent, culture can be a bitch!!! hehehe
Having said that, I've only had Rebellion about a week, and hadn't really gotten to the VL yet... until this afternoon. I just started a game as VL, and was reading the tech tree, when the full impact of strip-mining, along with all the other new techs the VL have..... and I had to stop and pause as it hit me... wow!!! Strip-mining planets, cap ships with labs.... star-bases with jump engines.... OMG....
OP???? Oh yeah, probably.... but what fun!!! I am blown away by not just the strip-mining ability, but combined with having taxable populations and labs on your cap ships, along with moving your capital to your Titan.... and even building a starbase that can jump... you can literally wander the systems without owning one planet... a roving death squad. And I think this is where strip-mining really comes into it. Basically capture a world, strip it bare, and then move onto the next one....
I'm gonna go restart a 6 player FFA with me as VL and all the other races set to cruel, and purposly aim for becoming one huge, roving fleet... only own a planet long enough to suck resources, build frigate and cap ship factories, if needed, to rebuild my fleet, then strip-mine the world and move on. And see if I can survive without having a home system, or if the other races can stop me.... hehehe......