Quote Horemvore" 

Increased Shipyard Stats:-
    Hitpoints increased to 350.
    Beam Attack increased to 24.
    Missile Attack increased to 32.
    Kinetic Attack increased to 20.
    All Defense types increased to 30."

Looks good to me. makes them harder to kill with a single ship but still vulnerable to a dedicated attack. The AI should assign them a priority in its attack logic, they also should cost more to build so once destroyed they cannot be replaced in one sigle turn. A progressive cost pegged to the current age would be nice.

On the diplomacy side, the changes you made may still be slightly overpowered. I planted the embassy on a class 26 bread basket planet and surrounded it by consulates and the missionary improvement. Population is now at 56. After researching up to the diplomatic district I now have a status of "dreamy" with everyone except the Romulans and Borg who are "captivated". I even have a great status with the minor races I am at war with. 

Playing klingons at gifted on an immense map with abundant everything and Conquest only victory conditions. I am second to the Borg who are across the galaxy and I was surrounded by the Ferengi, Federation, Romulans and Tholians so I had a chance to survive. I now have 109 planets and getting ready to take on the Breen who helped me carve up the Ferengi With everyone just loving me it has given me a chance to build up significantly both my military and industrial base. Now comes the time to start conquering the other races. All minors in my area have been conquered as well as the Ferengi.

As an aside, the precursor defended anomalies are too strong on an abundant map I believe, getting several 25% boost to all production with 100 + planets is significant as well as the 2000 credits that come with it. It would be nice to have a setting just for them so the normal ones can be abundant but the precursor artifacts are rare. The AI also seems to ignore them which gives me a large advantage.

There are already?

They do not take them atm. Removing the Encounter, they would treat them as any other non defended anomaly, basicly gobble them up right quick.

The precoursor relics are fine as they are. However what needs to be done is for the ai to make the effort to grab them. If they did that then we all would be on equal footing. 

I have petitioned for an entire 'Pirates' DLC which creates Pirates as a mobile interactive Minor with sub factions (Horemvores raiders, lars buccaneers..ect). I also have asked for diplomo options as the possibilities are endless (pay for raids on rival shipping lanes, attack other ships or starbases, interdiction of economic resources)..all woiuld be added to our growing diplomacy options. ...

Now precourer relic power is fine. You should have seen them BEFORE Stardock nerfed them! Horemvores solution was to make them VERY hard to get for a while and to delay the player a bit...this is so so in my opinion. In all cases unless the ai gets the perk as well, it will allow the player to steam roll eventually.  If you remove the guards then they will be non existent to the player I can tell you that...

Quoting Horemvore: "Did you have Ripe for Conquest active? Or had you nullified it buy having enough ships?"

Ripe for Conquest was an issue at first but yes I did do a massive buildup to nullify it. Used the malevolent ideology choices to get me to 100% military production on my home world as fast as possible and then just cranked out the ships. The anomalies and trade with minors kept me afloat economically until i was able to get good cash from my dedicated economic planets.

Some points from turn 250 playing the Klingons on gifted with immense map and all abundant.

1. As I said above the new diplomacy model is still a bit overpowered however by this time some of the opponents, Tholians and Dominion have started to turn against me due to my Pragmatic turn in ideology. Now distraught and resentful due to the -14 modifier in ideology choice. Maybe strengthening that would help? make the Malevolent races really hate anyone else?

2. The Klingon attribute that gives them research for every relic is over powered on an abundant map. I now get +180% for Culture relics, +210% for Approval, +120% for research, +90% for manufacturing and +60% for economic relics. That really adds up quick.

3. With the new terraforming I can get really big planets but the clicking is out of control, would be nice to click one setting that states soil engineer or terraform to maximum allowed (once researched of course) and all allowed terrain is automatically terraformed after the required turns, otherwise on some planets i have to double click 20 times to fully terraform the planet after manufacturing one or two work camps. 

^^ This is the 'Ancient' trait and yes on abundant and a player who knows how to 'exploit' it will become OP. I have it and I love it. It gives you 10% research (cumulative) per relic mined. I would suggest going into our settings and putting relics on rare or modding the ini before you go out and nerf a trait that is rather fun to play with. I play with it for that reason so I can keep a tech edge on Ai who get rather high bonuses. Lastly, do not forget that one of the X's in a 4x game is the word Xploit!!!

Quoting Horemvore "Well, I do not think the Klingons are "Ancient". So they are losing it, but, The Dominion are Ancient so they get it instead  "

Might be an idea to compensate a bit on the Klingon tech tree then since the -15% research attribute will leave them far behind otherwise at higher difficulty levels.

On another note, I noticed that the Klingons cannot use Antimatter for anything, they have no access to weapons that use it and the antimatter reactor improvement is not available. Right now all I can do with it is trade it. Was that done on purpose?

Speaking of resources, having the mining improvement available for all types of starbases except the economic variant is fun but leads to very large caches, something the AI does not seem able to exploit. I have 740 thulium and 508 antimatter for example while the Tholians are negative in both. If keeping this ability is in the cards then you may want to consider improving the AI's ability to exploit it and increase the number of improvements and weapons that need the resource. Other mods that do the same did it because all their weapons required them as a means of balance. It kind of defeats the purpose of the Elerium defence shield being a special improvement for those really important strategic assets when you have 550 Eleriums available and can build it on every planet. All my planets, 109 of them, are pretty much impenetrable by now with some, my class 55 precursor elevator world for example at over 200 points in defence and resistance. 

The game is very stable by the way, so far after 259 turns there have been no CTD or any other issues aside from the stuttering that SD does not seem able to fix on very large maps. 

Updated to Alpha 0.3e :-

Adjusted Embassy Chain stats:-

•     Embassy - +2 Diplomacy and additional 0.1 per level from influence buildings. (Potential 3.3 Diplomacy)
•     Diplomatic District - +4 Diplomacy and Additional 0.3 per level from influence buildings. (Potential 7.8 Diplomacy)
•     Diplomatic Ministry - +6 Diplomacy and additional 0.5 per level from influence buildings. (Potential 12.5 Diplomacy)

Increased Shipyard Stats:-

•     Hitpoints increased to 350.
•     Beam Attack increased to 24.
•     Missile Attack increased to 32.
•     Kinetic Attack increased to 20.
•     All Defense types increased to 30.

Military Starbase now increase Shipyard Attack by 10 and Defense by 15.
Defense Network module increases Shipyard Attack by 10 and Defense by 15.
Sector Defense Grid module increases Shipyard Attack by 20 and Defense by 30. (Replaces Defense Network module)
Military Starbase attack and defense area of effects now effect Shipyards. (15%, 25%, 50%)

AI Tweaks.
Adjusted the new Military Module's stats.
Added Attack and Defense to Military Ring module.
Minor Races have been Boosted.
Fixed Random CTD.
Fixed -50% Maintenace for Stationed Ships. I really have this time!
Diplomacy Tweaks:-

• Increased OpposingCulture Modifier for Benevolent by 15% and Malevolent by 25%.
• Increased TradeWithOpposingCulture to -2 base.
• Increased RefusedTechDemand to -2.
• Added modifier to ConquestVictoryGoal for Cruel 15% and Expansionist 25%.
• Increased Warmonger penalty to -6 base.
• Added modifier to YouAreWarMonger for Expansionist,Trader and Spiritual 25%.
• Added Culture modifiers to Culture Diplomatic Stat.
• Increased at War relation to -20.
• Increased Opposing culture base relation to -3.
• Increased Killed Friendly Player relation to -3.
• Increased has Artifacts relation to -2.
• Reduced Diplomatic Stat modifier's by 10%.
• Increased Warmonger penalty (-6 base).
• Added opposing culture modifiers to Cultural Diplomatic Stat.

AI Strategy Tweaks.
AI Starbase Governor Tweaks.
Fixed Missing Antimatter components for Klingons.
Fixed missing resource components.
Fixed last two torpedo tech costs.
Fixed Energy Phasing tech cost.

I have pushed this update out with only 1 and a bit Test games. I will apologize now if it turns out to be a bit unbalanced. I am pressed for time in RL due to work for the next 4-6 weeks so my modding time is going to be limited to hotfixes only most likely.

Yeah I got caught out somewhat in my current game. Started quite isolated on a Hugantic Map did not meet anyone for 106 turns, met the Tholians then and they DoW'd me 2 turns later due to RFC, although the -7 from opposing Ideology probably doesn't help. I had not built much military due to been isolated bah 3 minors. Fighting now to keep my boarder worlds from falling to them!

I am going to address this, it is next on my hit list. Will just take longer than I had planed due to time shortage.

Borg are tough as they should be, hardest of the faction if they have managed to build up. They normally Starbase hop to get to ppl they DoW, so you may not have the time you think, keep an eye out. I have noticed this about the Klingons too, not sure why they are doing that atm. The Feds are fairly well balanced weapon wise(I play them the most).

I had too use my stored up 50 turn immune to war. Met the Klingons, Breen and Dominion one after the other and they were all On The Warpath as soon as I met them, was not taking the chance while fighting back the Tholians and to top it off got the Dreadlords mega event and they spawned right on my Boarder with the Breen and are been a pain in the butt too my scouts & freighters

Just hit Tier 2 with Diplomacy, had very little effect on the mentioned factions. Just met the Cardassians and they seem to be Pacified enough via Diplo(+12) for me not to worry about them going to war. Got 31 turns left on my DoW Immunity, 25 Culture Starbases also had little impact on Diplo, only Tier one with them though. All other factions are +3 to +5 Diplo. So far so good, will see tomorrow how the last tier in Diplo improvements and tier 2 Starbases effect things.

NVidia on my side, GTX 980TI.