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The progression for refuelling is 20k, 30k, 40k, 60k, 90k, 135k, 200k, etc.

The small craft version still exists, with half the previous refuelling rate.

I do believe then that the main benefit you obtain from having more, smaller tankers is when your fleet is overall very low on fuel. What I mean by that is if you have one large tanker, and ten ships to refuel, then it can only refuel one ship at a time, and so depending on the fuel level of the fleet, you might run out of fuel on the other ships before you finish refueling the fleet, ( I do believe it refuels ship by ship, not the fleet as a whole). Having more numerous smaller tankers however allows you to not only double your refueling rate at the very minimum due to each needing a refueling system, but instead of only refueling one ship at a time, you can now refuel two, three etc, reducing the odds of your fleet running out of fuel while on the move as your tankers will move through your fleets twice as fast.

This generally isn't an issue if you have a tanker that can keep up and it's refueling capacity exceeds the total fuel burn of the fleet, but you can see where in certain cases this might lead to several interrupts for out of fuel. So I would like to request that you consider if another module or Tech can be added/researched that allows for increased simultaneous refueling. Whether this splits the total capacity or in a sense multiplies it is up to you, but it would be a workaround to smaller tankers being superior as you mentioned earlier. If one large Tanker can refuel say 4 ships at once(A good maximum, four ships flying in a plus formation around a tanker seems doable), it is doing the job of 4 smaller tankers. Though making the refueling systems heavier and more "powerful" as you've done would also shift the balance more in favour of larger tankers in general.

As for possible release dates to this long awaited update, are we looking at something late July/August if all goes well?

(From change discussion but this belongs in Suggestions more)

Wrecks will usually appear in systems with planets. They may be in orbit and, if so, they are more likely to appear in orbit of planets with better environments.

I like the idea of a 'fallen race'. I could probably generate the race normally, then wipe it out, then pass a random amount of historical time to reduce what remains, including radiation. Substantial addition though, so might not be soon.

Following along the lines of "simulated historical time" to generate a more plausible universe (some of them might be even more substational to add though). Here is some more brainstorming for potential storylines.

1.) Subjugated Races.
2-4 Races are generated instead on the same territory. One "Master" which get the territory, military and buildpoint might of all combined, with the other races being enslaved/subjugated and occupied by the "Master" race. Large subjugated populations in Forced Mines/Factories and so on.

2.) Eternal enemies.
Two races bordering eachother that are in perpetual war. By attacking one you get a massive bonus to the others relation, befriending one make the other an automatic enemy. Or you can try and stay neutral and bring out the popcorn to watch the fireworks.

3.) Symbiotic Races.
2-3 Races are generated on the same territory. They are hardcoded max relationship with eachother and even if they might persue somewhat different agendas they have evolved to be reliant on eachother. Possible extra interesting with situations where one handle all groundforces and the other all space forces or some kind of other combinations. Perhaps one build only warships and the other all commercial ships? Do they need to share minerals, wealth and other resources too?

4.) [Commercial Ship Module] Focus Race.
For some reason (your story can decide why) their goal is to build absurd amounts of a specific type of Commercial Ship. Could be either Fuel harvesters (Sorium Barons), Salvagers (Scrapyard masters), Terraformers (Gaia/Eden race) or so on. Bonus if your able to buy/rent these at affordable costs if you develop good relations with them.

5.) Trading Race.
Like above but they have some massive bonus to Civilian shipping generation. Ferengi? Do I need to say more?

Those are some excellent changes! I longed for some first contact wars that weren't caused by my own stupidity, and having actual fog of war in regards to spoilers is a vast improvement too.

May I suggest changing the "boarding action" bit to a "ground combat event"? This would include boarding actions but also make it possible to identify Rakhas, who wouldn't be able to get identified under current rules (as IIRC species with 100 xenophobia can't generate population intel? maybe their STO active sensors could generate an intel event, but that's terribly counterintuitive) and make Precursors and Raiders easier to identify as well. Swarm will let you know regardless.

Wrecks will usually appear in systems with planets. They may be in orbit and, if so, they are more likely to appear in orbit of planets with better environments.

I like the idea of a 'fallen race'. I could probably generate the race normally, then wipe it out, then pass a random amount of historical time to reduce what remains, including radiation. Substantial addition though, so might not be soon.

Fallen empires, especially ones generated by simulating the destruction of an actual race, do sound complex indeed. I understand postponing that as I would also like to see 2.6.0 before the decade's over Giving wrecks a more direct relationship with ruins feels like a rather natural addition though, albeit with a high enough ruin chance them spawning near low-CC worlds could be close enough. I still think having their tech level correlate with nearby ruin tech level would be neat as hell though.

Have you considered adding a startup setting for random wreck frequency?

Communication is established
A populated colony of the alien is captured or transferred to the viewing race.
A ship of the alien race surrenders or is captured
A lifepod of that race is rescued.
Sufficient ELINT data is gathered to generate an Intelligence Event

Hmm, will these conditions apply to the "special" aliens, i.e. Precursors, Raiders, Rakhas, Swarm, Invaders ?

Cos at least some of them, the conditions other than the ELINT one are not possible iirc ?

Like, raiders and precursors don't have populations that can be captured, and you can't communicate with them, and they don't have lifepods.

Alien Race Portraits

Currently, Alien Race portraits are shown on the Intelligence window as soon as a new race is detected. For v2.6, the portrait will remain blank until one of the following events occurs

• Communication is established
• A populated colony of the alien is captured or transferred to the viewing race.
• A ship of the alien race surrenders or is captured
• A lifepod of that race is rescued.
• A boarding action takes place involving the alien race.
• Sufficient ELINT data is gathered to generate an Intelligence Event

Ships and Flags will still be displayed as normal.