I just noticed something that got sneaked in this build.  The pirates will now attack all around your periphery, even if they have to go through other races planets to do so.  I've seen them go through 4 other planets to get to one of my backwater planets that would have been ignored before.  Normally, I would just defend the planets that are closest to the pirates base and not have to worry about other planets well back.  Not now.  The devs didn't mention this in the log.  Or, I just didn't see this behaviour in previous versions, but I don't think I would have missed something like this.

pek