Can anyone think of any drawbacks to setting the number of planets per sector really high as a way to limit the effectiveness of sector overloading? It would also nerf mothing. Lots of planets could kill big ships with sector fire, but that's what photons are for.

It would lead to stalemate if you could just load the sector w/
shielded cannons, all set at 1%....

Photons are only good for non shielded planets. Oh and taking your turns away

I wonder how many planets it would take to kill an IC with 1% sector fire. Or, more realistically, exponentially increasing sector fire (1%, 2%, 4%, etc.) And whether any game where someone has that many planets might still be considered a contest.

If you did load a sector with a very large number of developed planets, an overloading attack would be more likely to kill the good ones.

Why overload a sector with developed planets ?

5 stock Hs starting 1% through 5%, if maxed on gas, will take out a maxed stock IC

It is used to keep people from invading. For example, if I have a sector limit of 3 or 4 planets, I bring in others and then warp them out before extern.

So if five planets is already enough for that, then allowing more wouldn't really hurt anything.