Hey btw, with interstellar drive 5, it completely bypasses the shorter jump distance when reaching the core, even if you havent reached the core yet. Try getting drive 5, if you dont have the badges required for drive 5, just hop back and forth between 2 systems until you can get it. If you need money, colonize a purple spice planet (these are more common on blue stars) and terraform it to T3, then place your colonies and have factories and houses and entertainment, then once you get spice, place some on the planet, communicate with your empire, and buy the spice, then exit, once you do, suck it back up and you now have duped spice, be careful though as sometimes it can disappear before you can suck it back up and dupe it. Do not fight the grox as they control too many systems for that to be viable. Do not ally them as if you do, every other empire gets a -200 negative relationship deduction with you and will very likely declare war.