[BloodyButcher]

My take on the Cath and CO that round.

Spores strategy was decide pretty early, long before the round start.
It was gonna be FR + Cath CO.

Now usualy with cath its usualy two ways to play it in my view with stats like that.
Either is rank whore CO, who will easily gain roids, and will have good enough defence to keep em for a long time untill their value because very high. This works very well with the fast research they got, and their value is usualy build up fast with Income from roids and cores.
Other option is support cath, wich will have the much needed beetle to fetch of other cath CO incs, and xan FI inc. Obviously that will reduce the size of the targets you are able to solo roid, or the amount of targets you can take each night.

In modern PA, single battleticks, the EMP is far stronger than it was earlier, and in most "balanced stats" you will need either CATH or ETD to make a reliant ship strategy looking at the defensive perspective of it.
If you start nerphing cath untill its not realy worth while going for it, or start stripping it for EMP ships(more normal target ships) the stats either goes into ultra defensive or ultra offensive in my view.
Do what you like with the stats, but the race ratio of the top planets is usualy down to alliance strategies, and the fact that cath is zero loss due to the EMP usualy gives EMP planets a bigger chance of ending on the top in stats like these.