It is still a bit too cheap to buy out your rival colony ships early in the game

right now on average it costs me 2800 credits to buy out a colony ship, which is great, but if that is the alien's only colony ship at the beginning of the game, it's too crippling to the alien.

I am able to hamstring my two closet alien rivals right off the bat just thru this technique. granted if they have 3 or 4 colony ships at the higher level this isnt as bad, but at mid level difficulty level it devastates the aliens early game play.