you can also access change logs in impulse, if you right click on an item and view the history.
nice changes, especially the pirate missions do look promising. hopefully they will be effective enough to be of use.
about the new research of the hotfix. I was curious and had a look: at least for TEC it's a tier 7 tech. just to remove the penalties. too little, too late, too expensive would be my first impression. to have any real effect, it would have to be some in the range of tier 2 - 4. maybe these things could be combined (prereq wise) with the relationship improvement research.
and what was that about a diplo victory condition that frogboy mentioned? that made me really curious.
