Best setup for playing this game

By Indalecio, in Cosmic Encounter

Alright so we have played this game 4-5 times now and I would like to ask the community for what people think would be best to play this game in terms of additions and additional setup.

What we have done:

- Deal 3 alien cards to each player (one of each color: green, yellow and red). Each player chooses two of them, one face up (main alien power) and one face down (as per rules for operating a secret alien power).

- Played with cosmic quakes.

- Played with advanced encounter cards (which you draw upon taking your defensive reward).

- Played with Hazards.

What we have not tried out yet for fear to burden our games too much:

- Technologies.

- Space stations.

- Alliances (but we don't want to anyway).

I know these two are not entirely necessary to the experience. but have you found they were fun to play with? I was mainly concerned by the fact technologies would speed up the game too much (since ships disappear to support the research, making it easier to attack colonies). I am not sure either which rules I would use for dealing with the conquest of a colony when a space station is attached to it, I dislike the idea that the station can be moved out of the colony.

Any tips about how to incorporate these two mechanisms into our games? What has been playing out best for your playgroup? Or is it just a bad idea?

Edited by Indalecio

We vary the setup and variants based on the experience of players and the amount of time we have or number of games we'd like to play.

I can say that we really like the Space Stations along with the alternate victory condition (own 5 stations) in larger games.

I'm usually teaching the game to someone so I haven't been able to deviate from "standard game" much. I play with hazards and the Defensive Reward deck. I have yet to play with technology or space stations.