There are a few things I'm going to change for the release of version 5A, after the past two games.
I'm going to move the Drengin Exoskeleton Hull Point to later on in their tech tree. It makes their early ship designs a bit inefficient and more costly to manufacture, even if it does make each individual ship harder to kill.
I've also decided that medium hulls should always come after Technology Progression II, regardless of which tech tree I'm looking at. It makes things more consistent and as a human player, you will always know what you need to be aiming for.
I'm thinking of making a reduction in the cost of researching new research facilities, like maybe 20% across the board, because while some races seem to have no problem teching up, others seem to struggle a bit now that initial colonies don't have much intrinsic research value.
Finally, I'm going to do something crazy with the Arceans. Give them a +1 natural speed bonus as opposed to a speed penalty. However, they will take -20 to their Defence ability.
Also, while I was making changes, I noticed and corrected the Iconian bug with Biology as the category for Research Centre/Academy. Should have seen that ages ago.
I've made a few changes to the Terran tech tree. I've added Impulse Drive and Warp Drive to the Core Technologies groups. Don't have to complete the whole line of each, just the first tech of each. I also switched the positions of Invention Matrix and Medium Scale Building, and Superior Hulls now starts after Technology Progression III.
Finally, because some of the research facility techs had Technology Progression as their prerequisites, and I did a 20% cut in the cost of those, the costs of some Technology Progression techs have been adjusted.
Also, I've added three new Super Projects, one for each technology progression tech. Of course not all races have all those techs yet, but it will happen eventually.
The Drengin get to keep their discount on Planetary Invasion technology, but they now have to research Technology Progression II first. Should help to take the edge off.