Here's where I stood on the galactic map at this point:
There's been relatively little change from the past map; I have 14 systems compared to 20 for the Darloks. The only real change is that I've picked up Toranor (the Ultra Rich planet) and lost my borderline Ultra Poor world (the unclaimed red star in the east). Stalemate, however, is generally a good thing for the human player in this game; the AI does not handle late-game technology well, and most losses come when the human gets rolled up in the early game. I've already started to close the gap with the Darloks; if I can just invade a major planet and take it intact, I'll be able to move beyond simply treading water and start making some gains. (For the curious, the green star that the cursor is pointing to above is Orion. That's why no one has a flag there!)
As much as I wanted Pulson Missiles at this point to increase my own security, I was also giving Construction tech a major emphasis to gain access to Armored Exoskeletons. That would actually allow me to invade Darlok planets without catastrophic casualties, and go on the offensive for real for the first time. When I discovered the tech, I also found that I now had enough hull space and miniaturization to fit Antimatter Bombs on a Small design. Well, you can probably guess what that means:
Centauri was a Rich planet (formerly Radiated) that the shapeshifters had swept in and grabbed out from under my nose earlier. I wasn't able to stop them from securing the planet previously, so it would make a good first target for an attack. Here you can see both my fleet of bombers (and these are Mrrshan bombers, extra deadly!) and the massive population swarm incoming to Centauri. Even though I've upgraded my gropo tech, I'm still going to be fighting at a major disadvantage here.
For a game this old, landing the full 300 soldiers still looks pretty impressive. I had traded for Ion Rifle tech with the Klackons for something obsolete, meaning that the Darloks only had +25 added to their ground rolls. That's a huge advantage, but not enough to inflict 4:1 casualties:
Those 75 Darlok colonists still managed to kill 163 of my soldiers, better than a 2:1 ratio, but those losses were easily acceptable. The fact that there were only 131 factories was somewhat of a drag - what had the AI been doing here? this is a RICH planet! - and I only pulled two techs in the invasion. One of them was junk, but the other one was a MAJOR find:
Advanced Soil Enrichment, alright! Wasn't in my tree, so it was a great one to loot. This pretty much ended any threat of the Darloks winning a council victory, because there was no way that my population was going to fall under 1/3 once all my worlds had been terraformed with Atmospheric and Advanced Soil. Think of it as a nice insurance policy.
For the next dozen or so turns, my planets were tied up in terraforming and then adding lots of additional factories. While they were busy with that, my bomber fleet moved on to the small Desert planet of Rayden, which was only lightly defended. I orchestrated another successful invasion there, but once again only captured a handful of factories. Still, I pulled another significant tech from the ruins of the planet:
Fusion Rifle might not seem like a big deal, but it upgraded my gropo weaponry by another 10 points. Now the Darlok defenders would only have a +15 advantage, meaning I could now invade at something approaching reasonable odds.
The big target in my corner of the galaxy was the Darlok fortress of Cygni. Initially a Terran 100, they had terraformed it up to size 170 and loaded it to the gills with factories and missile bases. If I could take it intact, I would undoubtedly pull the max of six techs and surely grab some highly useful stuff. That had been an impossibility for most of the game so far, due to my ground equipment inferiority, but now I could actually attack with a reasonable chance of success. Thus it was time to cry havoc, and let loose the dogs of war:
57 missile bases packing Pulsons? Yeouch! The good news is that I have over 2000 of my Small bombers, and even though every Pulson missile will surely kill one of my ships, that still means the Darloks can only kill 171 of my ships each combat round. In other words, this was the classic "swarm the enemy with too many little ships to kill" strategy; if the Darloks had had Scatter Pack VII missiles, I would have needed to try something else entirely! I ended up losing about 500 ships, but the missile bases were all destroyed, clearing a path for the invasion force:
400 troops incoming? Let's just say I didn't want to take any chances at losing this one! 
I had an initial wave of about 250 landing on the first turn, to be followed by 150 on the next. I shouldn't need nearly this many, but any surplus colonists will just help Cygni get up to speed faster after capture.
And the battle is a glorious success! With 418 factories captured, I will definitely pull the max of six techs. Now, let's see what prizes I gained:
Inter-Phased Drives?! Those are Warp EIGHT!!! 
Tech level 42 in Propulsion, tops in the Darlok tree currently. I've never had engines better than warp 7 before. Wow.
Tritanium Armor, outstanding! There goes the one remaining Darlok edge in gropo tech, plus I'll be able to upgrade my new ship designs with another +100% hit points. This was the top Darlok tech in Construction. But wait, we're still not done yet:
Robotics V! 
There goes the Darlok edge in production. This was their top Computer tech, and would allow me to build up my infrastructure even further.
And I pulled Class IX Deflectors as well, the top tech that the Darloks had in their Force Field tree. I also got Star Gate technology, but didn't bother snapping a screenshot of it. The final tech was a dud, but that hardly mattered. This was HANDS DOWN the best tech haul I've EVER gotten from a MOO invasion. I pulled the top Darlok tech in FOUR different trees! 
The capture of Cygni looks like the turning point in this game. I'll hold off on declaring a winning position until after I see how my new dreadnought designs perform, but it doesn't look like there will be any more chance to lose this game.
