I’ve fallen down the hole that is X4 Foundations. It is consuming my every waking thought. It has a frustrating learning curve and a lot of things to criticize but I do so love building my space empire and learning the subtler points of the game.

That’s fair. I’ll double check this week and let you know if it’s got direct LAN multiplayer.

I don’t know if it has a LAN specific option. but If you are both playing on Steam or Epic, it supports multiplayer/crossplay between the two platforms. Though you don’t access it directly from the home screen. Play through the beginning tutorial section till you reach your home base, then one of the buildings you can interact with is the multiplayer menu.

Dyson Sphere Program just got a pretty substantial update adding combat mechanics. If you like other production/logistics games like factorio/mindustry/satisfactory I highly recommend it. The amount of control they give you over sorting/distribution/etc combined with the ability to create blueprints can make for some rapid scalability to your manufacturing operation, and the same mechanics can be leveraged to now wage a competent and scalable offence against the new enemy.