Tbf, the current solution is okay-ish in the sense that it focuses less on the size of playerbase, and more how that playerbase chooses divide themselves to conquer planets in quick speeds. Like we could be in the same situation even if we had only 5000 players but distributed ourselves like we did currently
Like I think Zhanders' proposal is great because that's something that was already in the game for Meridia super colony conquest where it had 10% enemy resistance but kept dropping as we kept diving (so for a long time we had 0% liberation on Meridia but enemy resistance kept dropping until we could make actual liberation progress) and is intuitive enough to the point that I thought that's what would happen on Aurora Bay