There's a bit after "competition" comes into play. And for me, that was the hardest part of the game. You had to grow faster than the competition, which is pretty difficult.

I've done two playthroughs. The 1st playthrough was pretty lucky and I had no issues... but the 2nd playthrough of mine was "deadlocked" behind those Drifters for a long time.

Its very punishing to fall behind the drifters: it takes a lot of effort and optimization to catch up to them and overtake them. But I assure you, its possible, even if they kill all of your probes.

I would imagine that a lot of players get unlucky, and then get "trapped" there. Its the first time you see your numbers drop, since the adversary actually kills off your means of production. Growing (and out-growing the adversary) takes a very different strategy than the rest of the game up until that point.

I stopped playing prematurely at first because I thought I'd seen everything. You haven't seen it all until the end credits play.

You aren't done until every atom in the universe is part of a paperclip. Even then, there may be other universes out there.

The wiki can get you there, but I still recommend going through the stages (with the Wiki open to make it go faster) to see the ending itself.

https://universalpaperclips.gamepedia.com/Universal_Papercli...

Yeah, I looked it up earlier right after my comment. Maybe I'll try to do an optimized play through (or use the cheats) to see the ending. From looking at the wiki I got something like 97% of the way through to the end, which is honestly kind of annoying to leave unfinished.

Gameplay changes pretty drastically after you unlock drones, and even more-so after that phase.

I was past that. By competition I mean the drifters. I was very close to the end, I was just having problems optimizing enough to deal with that specific problem and also running out of time for the day.

You need to optimize for exploration heavily, when you get low on paper clips you can adjust production, but mostly just try to colonize like crazy.

Prioritize replication. You can win with 1 in Speed and 1 in Exploration. Hazard Remediation should be 3 to 5 depending if you have the upgrades. And a 4 or 5 in Combat when you get it. Everything else should be put in Self-Replication.

You want to be over 10 Probe Trust when you start thinking about putting anything into Speed or Exploration.

Also, take one out of Hazard Remediation to put into any of the three Production skills as needed.

Once you see the percentage of universe explored start ticking up on the screen, the game is over. With a high enough Self-Replication, your growth is closer to exponential than linear. Doesn't matter if you're slow and don't explore far, you will just occupy the entire universe.