Development Update: 16 November 2019

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only the bug fixes will remain.

Gameplay Additions and Changes

• It is now possible to pan the map during AI turns. If you find that this negatively impacts performance on slower graphics cards, this feature can be disabled by turning on the Simplified Graphics option.
  
• Added option "AI Turn Zooming" that additionally allows map zooming during AI turns. This optional feature may impact performance on some machines, so it is disabled by default.
  
• It is now possible to reverse engineer captured starships at any time, rather than only when you first capture them.
  
• Human missile cruisers now have 1 size 3 Torpedo mount (up from 2 size 1 mounts).
  
• Added a new UI option to the Options pane: 'Capitalize Outpost Names'. The names of star systems with only an Outpost (and not a colony) are normally displayed on the map in lowercase to differentiate them from other systems; this option disables this.
  
• In the Galactic Council, AIs will no longer vote for allied empires if those empires have fleets that they judge to be weaker than their own.
  
• Starting a war should now implicitly cancel all outstanding diplomatic requests between the two warring empires.
  
• Captured stations around planets destroyed by bombardment will now be destroyed when the planet's population is destroyed.

Fixes

• In tactical combat, it should no longer be possible to issue a move order to a ship that is still in the process of exploding.
  
• Fix for a bug that could prevent mercenary ships from being properly captured.
  
• Refitting a military transport to a design that lacks transport space should no longer cause an error.
  
• Fix for an error that could be triggered by rushing a ship's production, then changing the underlying design.
  
• Some 'End turn' and 'Load Game' UI transitions should be smoother.
  
• Refitting a station that contains habitat modules will no longer cause any population living in those modules to disappear.
  
• Workaround for a bug caused by destroyed Marauder companies that controlled captured outposts.
  
• Fleets should no longer choose hyperspace anomalies as possible retreat destinations.
  
• Fix for a bug triggered by scuttling captured stations.
  
• Fix for a rare bug that could cause crashes inside the AI research logic.
  
• Fix for a bug that could cause ship hulls from different races to share construction progress.
  
• The "demand you stop trading with our enemies" event now has a cooldown to prevent excessive repeated demands.

I can see a future in which we will meet again.