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It is not entirely clear whether or not this is a good change, as it makes the algorithm significantly more conservative. In situations where the player is confident they will not be bombed (perhaps because the opponent cannot have a stellar bomb available), it may feel frustratingly so. But I am going to give it a try and see if it feels okay or not in practice, and I can change it later if it proves annoying.
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The tactical overlay
All colors of hatching displayed by the tactical overlay.
The tactical overlay is one of the most important parts of the user interface to pay attention to during a game, as it provides crucial information about what might happen on the current turn based on your currently-planned orders. This is especially helpful in games using the Classic ruleset, as it takes the more sophisticated garrisoning requirements into account. The overlay is rendered as hatching superimposed upon system hexes in one of four colors. This hatching is displayed at all zoom levels, but it is significantly easier to see when fully zoomed out (as depicted in the picture above).
The colors used in the tactical overlay have the following meanings:
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Green hatching indicates systems you are guaranteed to capture.
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Yellow hatching indicates systems you might capture or might lose.
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Orange hatching is like yellow hatching, but it only appears on systems you already control, and it additionally indicates that the systems may be attacked by a neighboring hostile system.
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Red hatching indicates systems you are guaranteed to lose.
When playing with the Classic (rather than Streamlined) ruleset, system collapses due to insufficient garrison can cause chain reactions that result in large numbers of systems being lost. To distinguish the “linchpin” systems that may start such chain reactions, yellow and red hatching comes in two variants on systems you control:
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Bright yellow and bright red hatching indicate systems that are at immediate risk of collapsing this turn due to insufficient garrison, without considering chain reactions.
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Dim yellow and dim red hatching indicate systems that are at risk of collapsing this turn due to a chain reaction of other collapses.
The tactical overlay updates automatically as you modify your orders, so it can be useful to experiment with different tentative fleet movements to get an intuition for what the different colors mean.
Using the tactical overlay effectively
The complex garrison rules in the Classic ruleset make the tactical overlay an indispensable resource when planning your turn. As long as you pay attention to the hatching and respond appropriately, it is impossible to lose your whole empire to a catastrophic chain reaction of system collapses.
Orange hatching indicates systems that you have some chance of losing this turn regardless of their garrison. Building or moving fleets into them reduces the chance that they will be captured next turn, but it cannot completely eliminate the possibility. Therefore, there is no “correct” number of fleets to place in these systems, and you must determine their garrison based on what you think other players will do on the next turn and how valuable they are to hold.
In contrast, yellow and red hatching on systems you control can always be removed by altering system garrisons. In particular, yellow hatching can be eliminated by increasing the garrisons of systems with bright yellow hatching, and red hatching can be eliminated by increasing the garrisons of systems with bright red hatching. Note that there is no advantage to increasing the garrisons of systems with dim yellow or dim red hatching, as these systems can only collapse if the systems with bright hatching do.
One important property that follows from the above is that there is almost always a specific, optimal number of fleets to leave garrisoned in each system in your empire that does not have orange hatching. If a fleet can be moved out of an unhatched system without causing the system to become hatched, it probably should be moved, as it can likely be put to better use elsewhere. The only exception to this is if you intend to mount an attack from that system on the following turn but cannot do so on the current turn, due to either an alliance that is about to expire or a Tannhäuser project you are about to deploy.
The tactical overlay and stellar bombs
Because stellar bombs prevent all fleet movements out of the target system for a turn, deploying a stellar bomb can affect the tactical overlay. Most significantly, if a system you control is only bordered by one hostile system, deploying a stellar bomb on that system will eliminate the orange hatching on the adjacent system! This is in fact the only way to remove such hatching, so although it may be counterintuitive, the most valuable way to use a stellar bomb may be defensive rather than offensive.
Note, however, that this ability cuts both ways: fleet movements out of any system at risk of being stellar bombed may be canceled. Therefore, such fleet movements do not count towards the worst-case garrison calculation and will not eliminate hatching on their destination system. This can be somewhat counterintuitive, but erring on the side of caution ensures that the absence of any hatching on a system is a true guarantee that the system will not be lost.