We're going to have a new Insider's Branch probably on Tuesday.  Thought I'd give you guys a sneak peek on some of the things in it that we did during the weekend (we're NOT addicted to the game, we swear!).

• Visual display of ship hull sizes modified to make it easier to view them in battle

• Renamed Explorers ability to Voyagers

• Fixed the ability to acutlaly for realsies give a +2 moves, +2 sensors

• HIvemind ability HP buff in territory decreased from 25 to 5

• Several new anomaly events (tired of the "stealth fileld" yet?)

• Grand festival length decreased from 25 turns to 12.

• Major rework of technology tree

• Full rebalance of the AI prioritization of techs to get it to better research weapons and better hulls.

• New tech: Exotic World colonization replaces the myriad of specialty planet types techs

• New tech: Interstellar cabinet replaces the myriad of "Ministry of X" techs

• New tech: Space Weapons. Early game tech to give some additional weapons before specialization.

• Point Defense tech tree removed (point defenses and other specific weapon counters will become part of a specialized defense branch later along with new evasion techs).

• Beam weapon theory renamed Directed Energy Weapons

• Space Lasers (sigh) renamed Photonic Alignment

• Devastaor Missile System renamed to Phoenix Missile System to match the weapon it gives

• Shrunk the size of the cruiser tech description

• Removed drones as a resource / element of the game until we can do something more interesting with them.

• Lots of new lines of text for the AI to speak to the player rather than "we want peace"

• Self Determinism now grants 3 leaders.

• Ministers unlocked mostly between Interstellar cabinet, political capital and colonial bureaucracy.

• Various exotic world planet types (like radioactive worlds) are unlocked by a single tech: Exotic World Colonization.

• Several new ship components for early game use.

• General UI text update to fit better on screens (espeically for people in Germania) and clearer descriptions of stats.

• Festron no longer take a penalty for not being on an aquatic world because they don't actually like watr. They're not water bugs. They're bug bugs and prefer jungle which they now get a huge morale boost of if they're on those worlds.

• Invite leader cooldown reduced from 50 to 10, control cost increased from 10 to 20.

• Trade route value multiplier increased from 15% to 33% to make trade routes more valuable

• Number of Trade licenses greatly reduced

• Tech Inflation multiplier reduced from 11% to 10%

• Number of rounds in a battle increased from 40 to 100 so that battles have a better chance to play out.

• YOU CAN MOVE THE CAPITAL. Players can destroy their capital and then place it on any tile they want.

• Colony capitals can now be destroyed and relocated as well

• Civ capital maintainence removed.

• Durantium Processor level bonus increased from 1% to manufacturing to 3%

• A new upgraded research project added

• Garrison now increases PLanetary Defense instead of Resistance

• More improvements moved to earlier in the tech tree

• Low quality planets now rarely have any food output to make food more valuable.

• Coerced colonization approval penalty increased from 5% to 15%.

• Hull Reinforcing changed form providing 25 HP to every ship to 20% (percent) buff to a ship.

• Major Prestige Victory balance pass. Should feel a lot better.

• Explorer race trait fixed

• Siege Ships are now Frigate class

• Carriers are now Dreadnought sized

• Tactical speed of ships altered to be better balanced

• Cruiser hull Manufacturing cost increased from 40 to 100

• Battleship hull manufacturing cost increased from 100 to 300

• Dreadnought hull amnufacturing cost increased from 250 to 1000

• Dreadnought hull usable space increased from 32 to 36

• Banking Clan faction diplomacy penalty increased from 0.5% to 1%

• Capitalist Society faction gross income buff changed from a flat 1 per intellgence of leader to a 1% buff to income per intelligence of leader wwhile increased the approval penalty from 0.1% to 0.5% per social.

• Empporium faction Bazaar discount changed from 0.005 flat to 0.5% per intelligence of leader added wile Crime is now increased by 0.01% per diligence of that leader.

• Minister of Finance provided a 1% buff per colony income per intelligence.

• Minister of Defense now provides a Planetary Defense buff instead of resistance.

• AI ships will no longer bother with marginal colonies unless it can take them in less than 2 turns.

• Improvements to AI tax rate handling

• Fixed some issues with the way the AI was choosing techs to research

• Planets will rebel much faster than before from foreign influence.

• Fix to canusegalactic market changed to simply see if they have the universal translator. No fancy stuff.

• Economic Power no longer takes the treasury into account.

• Much bigger approval penalty from high crime.

• HP buff to ships based on # of colonies is now the square root of the # of colonies rather than linear.

• Raw fleet weapon rating greatly reduced for determining the siege rating of a fleet.

We hope to have this out for insiders Tuesday, May 30, in the afternoon.