Yeah it tends to require providing additional information but it can also provide surprising insights. Like I was having trouble with deriving a particular power series and ChatGPT actually gave me the clues for solving it pretty quickly. Note that its own answer was in fact incorrect, but it dug up the correct technique from somewhere and used it to produce the incorrect answer, so I then could solve it on my own.
There is certainly a point to the 5-Mudskipper Colonization Special even though it was of course just a lucky hallucination by the AI (I guess) since at least Google doesn't find this particular term ever used on this forum. Specifically Mudskippers are indeed very cheap for what they bring. Look at this for example:
I would argue the Mudskipper is the correct pick here. It gives you 100 crew capacity and 70 cargo capacity for 3500 credits, compared to 120 cargo capacity and 400 crew capacity for the Nebula for 22k credits. Note that 5 Mudskippers is enough cargo capacity and crew capacity to start a colony for 17 500 credits while 2 Nebulas are required for 44k credits, and you can additionally pick up Mudskippers one by one so that makes black market trading easier. The Starliner (D) for 55k credits will also do the job, but it has a lower max burn (so does the Nebula). All three fleets - 5 Mudskippers, 2 Nebulas or 1 Starliner have 300 sensor profile. These are considerations that are necessary when you are speedrunning for a colony, because being attacked by pirates is a real concern.
I think this might actually be a pretty fun playstyle for Nex. I'm doing it again in Starfarer mode with a Free Start and I'll probably go Industry -> DO and Leadership -> SD and spam cheap ships, since I expect early attacks on my colony. Although it might be too easy still because you can print money with black market trading if you know what you are doing so good chance I get a Battlestation or something up before serious trouble.
