Our latest fasttrack tweaks some of the economy and also makes both the merchant AI and the pirates more active. And you can now capture facilities. But be prepared to get really beat up by the pirates short term until you can build up a bit, they might now be too aggressive...

Hint: if you can research up to shields, they make a big difference.

Also, chapter 1 of the tutorial is now complete, although we might still add a bit more content to it. Feedback on this would be greatly appreciated.

And lots of miscellaneous updates and fixes.

FastTrack v.771

• Adjusted default starting game difficulty levels
  
• Merchant AI trading system optimized
  
• More fixed to galaxy generation
  
• Order added for space combat units, they can now capture facilities if undefended.
  
• Hotspots in right click menu now let you select type of hotspot directly from the menu list
  
• Added Orbital Control hotspot to indicate where to place space docks
  
• Updates to tutorial system, Tutorial chapter 1 now works from start to finish
  
• Sensor array now allows spotting of FTL activity for system in which it's built, regardless of line of sight
  
• Surveying the world of a minor race makes them "discovered"
  
• Pirate economy balance updated
  
• Pirate aggression level updated, declare war on sight vs. regular factions
  
• Pirate declare war on players and alliance between pirates update
  
• Refactored use of Shields by units and User Interface to communicate what's happening
  
• Space Transport ships now have basic fighter carrier capacity
  
• Space unit descriptions added, text due for more review
  
• Adjusted Space Docks and Engineer ships to have the same weight
  
• Technology Popup UI for "Leads to" techs now fully implemented. Double click to follow up the chain.
  
• Asteroid HUDs redesigned
  
• Updates to planet types, sizes for both text and visuals
  
• Fixed wrong city models until end of first day
  
• Some performance optimizations
  
• Space ranges ("Sectors") are now counted in hexes (not 16perhex)
  
• Fixed border supply creep 'wobble' that's been around forever
  
• Updated handling of "dead" regions. Require > 1000 population to be restored as alive
  
• Updates for scripted events to understand system vs. planet levels
  
• Updated AI base location routines
  
• Fixes to some unit orders
  
• Fixes to diplomatic trades between factions
  
• Updates to loading/unloading of units on planet
  
• Updates to alert message system
  
• Fixed loading savegame starts as main empire faction, not start as colony
  
• Refactor of various visual effects
  
• Refactored how the total population per planet is calculated.
  
• Fixes to switching between colony and main faction
  
• Fixed small memory leak that would have created a crash eventually
  
• Refactored calculation for number of "sustainable" days of commodity reserves
  
• Decolonize by parent will now keep all treaties (including alliance, transit)
  
• Fixed rare situation where alert bar product stocks show wrong region
  
• Fixed NavPoints list of Inhabited worlds
  
• Fixed response options in some alert messages
  
• Various UI fixes, graphic updates, data file fixes and localization fixes