Unsure if this is a bug, a racial setting that I didn't look at during setup, or intentional, but my race starts with big ground combat bonuses I wasn't expecting. At game start, I had a racial weapon strength of x3, though armour was only x1. I got Trans-Newtonian, and it's up to weapons x5 and armour x4. I don't see any techs I can research to improve those values, though.
Also, while I was looking at that, I see that the tech window's "Available/Completed/Exc Start" buttons don't work. It always shows me available techs.