For me, programming is what I do for fun.  So while Stardock is closed...I get to play with the GC4 code.

Here's a running list of changes I'm working on that may end up in the next update:

• Base technology rate for adjusting for map size changed from 500 to 1200 since GC4 has sectors and most of the "hexes" aren't real. This drastically reduces the # of turns to get techs.
• Galaxy setup screen now automatically adjusts player counts based on the actual # of usable hexes in the universe.
• Adjusted the number of players recommended to take into account both the size of the sectors AND the number of sectors.
• New # of stars calculation for map generation so that there is a much greater variance in star frequency based on sector count and sector sizes.
• Nebula spawning redone to deal with the sectors (basically, the area outside sectors are still technically hexes and this needs to be deal with when spawning things).
• AI's "ripe for conquest" calculation ramps up rather than suddenly turning on.
• AI deals with starvation much better (food starvation not some sort of fancy CPU starvation or whatever). Not real food but the food in the game.
• Taxes have a much bigger effect on approval than previous.
• Research and Manufacturing are now knee-capped by approval. I.e. a 55% approval means your research on a planet is adjusted to 0.55 of what it would have been. (lots of rebalancing to deal with this incoming).
• Colonies (not core worlds) get a free +1 good so that they're not so bloody miserable all the time (they're still pretty miserable but sheesh).
• Colonies (not core worlds) get a free 0.1 per planet class of goods to make the approval rate of say Paridia a very different thing than say Ceti Alpha V.
• AI targets low taxes rather than medium taxes.
• AI now uses the AI Preference tech for choosing executive orders to use.
• AI much more likely to build constructors when there are resources and stuff to go get.
• AI will abort building endless "defender" (the little ships) if it can't find something else to do and instead will try to produce mission ships or other types of ships.
• Fixed a bug where the "needs more defenders" value was inverted...
• AI more willing to build ships that take longer to build if they're at peace.
• AI more likely to build supply ships if the other core world isn't too far away.
• Fixed bug that resulted in AI not rushing ships if it was rich.
• Write a new heuristic (i.e. crappy) tile distance calculator that will need to be improved to determine how far away a tile is when it's in another sector (since, again, the space between sectors are technically tiles and we need to largely ignore this distance and deal with where the different subspace stream lanes are.  This way, the AI will go into other sectors far more readily. THIS NEEDS TO BE IMPROVED ON.
• Uncolonized planets that can be colonized have a whiter, more easy to see glow around them.
• Fixed a few crash issues.
• AI uses heuristic tile distance calculator for dealing with tiles that are in other sectors.

• AI will only used cached battle ratings rather than recaluclating (massive turn speed boost).,

• Small ships now require orbital manufacturing to research (Was artificial gravity which already gives a +1 to moves).
• Fixed bug that caused the pirates not to move.
• Big rebalance to planet classes (crappy worlds are still 1 to 3 but the good ones are now much higher).
• Colonies do not have their output affected by approval. Thus, a core world, at first, is actually worse than a colony before it gets improved on.
• Big balance pass on the mineral, food, wealth and tech defaults of planets in order to deal with the approval affecting outputs.  This also results in more variance and distinction between worlds (Which is fun)
• High quality planets are now visibly larger on the map to make them easier to spot.
• Taxation rate high changed from 0.75 to 0.67
• Taxation rate max changed from 1 (100%!) to 90%.
• Max starvation penalty reduced from 30% to 20%. (though this may creep upward again, we'll see).
• Rebalanced the default strategic zoom settings so that dead planets and other stuff all disappear at different rates.
• Changed "income" to revenue in various places.
• Expectations rebalance across all civs now that approval is such a big deal.
• Control relics produce 0.1 control per turn, not 1 per turn!

• Balance pass on cluster sizes to make the sizes more distinct.

• Vastly reduced the amount of nebula based on player settings (pick abudant if you want it to be abundant).

• Top to bottom revisit of the # of stars, planets, etc. that are generated at the start of the game based on player settings, # of sectors, starting sector, etc.
• Asteroid fields can get bigger.
• Significant reduction in the # of anomalies on occasional and lower (basically far more variance based on the setting).

• New starting executive order: Print money. Gives you 1000 credits but lowers approval for 52 turns but the cooldown is only 25 turns which means you can stack the misery if you want!

• Hyperlanes allow you to move 20 times faster instead of 10 times faster.
• Core capitals now cost 1 maint.
• Core capitals provide +1 raw minerals.
• Civilization capital provides +10 wealth to get the player started.
• Various galactic wonders are now moved up into the tech tree so that there are more intersting choices early on.
• Research mission cost increased from 90 to 100.
• Treasure mission cost increased from 80 to 120.
• Promethius stone now provides 3 wealth to a core world.
• Xanthium deposits now provide 1 mineral to a core world.
• Techapod hives now proivides 1 mineral to a core world.
• Removed maint from many of the improvements.
• Reduced the cost of improvements in general to deal with the generally lower manufacturing (due to approval).
• Reduced the tech inflation multiplier so that late game techs aren't quite so crazy expensive.
• Population growth multiplier reduced from 2.0 to 1.5 (population will grow a lot faster).
• Rushing on planets and shipyards only cost 1 control rather than 25 and 20 respectively.
• Elimination of "galaxy size" pick.  Now, players choose # of sectors and the size of their starting sector. Those two now generate the galaxy size.
• Planet class now described on how good it is instead of using a size (a planet class 26 is awesome, not "big").

• Eliminated screen dirt of displaying the rarity of a tech on the card. The rarity icon is sufficient and the mouse over now displays the rarity label.

• Changed "player" to civilization.

• Added some missing descriptions

• Cultural Value protection policy now requires ministry of culture tech
• New policy: Grove Growth.  Species with the Spore ability can use this. Food production +50%.
• New policy: Empathic Connection. Species with the Empathy trait can use this. Approval +30%.
• New policy: Fast Exploration.  Species with Explorers trait can use this.  All ships get +2 moves but lose half their HP while enacted.
• New policy: Hull Reinforcing. Drath (warprofeering) can use this. +25 HP to all ships. 
• New policy: Focus on Innovative individuals.  Species with inspiration trait can use this. All planets get +1 to tech.
• New policy: Enviromental Exploitation.  Gross Income +5 but pollution goes up 25%. Anyone can do this. Even you.
• Fixed Research Grants policy to work.
• Research grants now requires research districts tech.
• Fixed Genius grants policy to work.
• New policy: Asteroid Exploitation. Species with Archeology trait can use this. Asteroids give 1 raw material instead of 0.1 each.
• New policy: Subspace Sensor installation. Species with starfairing trait can use this. Doubles sensor range.
• Planetary Stimulus policy can't be used by robots.
• New policy: Population boom. Species with fertile trait can use this. People are..encouraged to..er...breed. Approval +10%. Wealth -20% (people are busy). Population growth +200%.
• New policy: Shoddy Construction. Species with Proliferation trait can use this. Improvement cost is cut in half but maint on buildings that have maint is quadrupled while enacted (of course, you can turn this off later..).
• New policy: Endless Feast. Species with ravenous trait can use this.  While enacted, sentient forms of food are..ahem..imported.  Food income +1 per planet.   Approval +20%. Diplomacy -2. Don't judge me!
• New policy: Singular Purpose.  Species with Unrelenting trait can use this. While enacted, civ gets +1 control per turn.
• Military Stimuls now requires armed shuttles tech.
• Rationing policy now requires planetary mobilization tech.
• New policy: Extreme Automation. Robot races can increase their manufacturing by 50% though it costs 20% income.
• Unregulated Corps policy now requires orbital manufacturing tech.
• Unregulated research now requires WeakAI tech.
• Slave Labor tech now virtually eliminates planetary maint.
• Genetic Manipulation policy now requires Planetary Adaptation tech.
• New policy: Ship specifications. Requires Space Doctrine tech.  Ship HP +20% but increaes ship costs by 10%.
• Coerced colonization can only be used by carbon based lifeforms but not ones with fertile ability (they have pop boom).
• New policy: IP Theft.  Races with resourdceful trait can use this.  REsearch +20% but diplomacy -1.
• New policy: Laissez-faire.  Species with wealthy trait can use this.  Colony money income doubled but pollution increased by 20% and crime increased by 10%.
• Experimental drive HP penalty reduced from 50% to 20%.
• New policy: Remote Navigation.  Robot races can add +1 moves to their ships.
• New policy: Professionalism.  Species with the loyalty trait can enact this. Experience increased by 50% by ships while enacted.
• Conscription now requires Planetary Invasion tech.

• Drengi buffed a lot because it sucks so much otherwise.

• Policies the player can't currently enact are now hidden to make the screen more readable.
• Removed the governor powers from the planet screen. 
• Updated planet art for home worlds.
• Xeno Entertainment gives a 10% approval bonus.
• Moved Subspace Streaming tech to immediately follow the scanning tech.
• New technology: Space Doctrine.
• New technology: Flexible Bulkheads: +1 component slots to all ship sizes. [uncommon]
• New technology: Extreme Miniaturization: 1 + 25% more component slots to all ship sizes. [rare].
• Civ capital now longer requires maint.
• Players start with a single policy slot (instead of none).
• Tooltip system updated to intelligently place itself so that it's not showing up on top of the control
• Ship XP is now evenly divided between participants rather than based on damage dealt.
• Updated tech short descriptions to be more descriptive.
• AI builds a lot more scouts.
• AI much more likely to go to war with other civs (and the player) if they really hate that civ and they have good miltiary power. 
• AI much better about building resource mining starbases
• AI much better about building asteroid bases.
• Big AI update to how it decides what ships to build (this will likely need additional iteration)
• Fixed bug where AI was not clearing the # of ships it thought it had in orbit.
• AI much better at handling tax increases and decreases
• AI no longer uses AIstrategydefs (which are a pain to maintain) as a template on what to build and instead builds a strategy in code based on lots and lots of factors for much smarter AI performance.
• Hyperwave radio policy slots opened reduced from 2 to 1 (since players now start with 1 slot)
• Other species have lower expectations (so that they're not so annoying on your planets)
• Colonial Bureaucracy now adds a policy slot.
• Colonial Bureaucracy now requires leadership recruiting
• Political Capital now opens a policy slot.
• Colonial Law and policy now opens a policy slot
• Ministry of defense tech moved from requiring Ministery of Finance to Leadership recruiting
• Removed "Ministry of Truth" (until we can find something interesting for it)
• Domestic policy doctrine opens a policy slot
• Colonial Governance opens a policy slot
• Ministry of Culture moved from using leadership recruiting as a prreeq to Xeno Entertainment
• Xeno Religions tech now requires ancient civ trait
• Black Market tech now requires War profittering ability
• Removed "Marketing" tech until we can find something useful for it.
• Space Doctrine now adds a policy slot
• Planetary Shock and Awe tech moved to requiring PLanetary Siege TEch
• Systems of Control now requires Unrelenting civ trait.
• Supply depot cost reduced from 50 to 28 to help get new worlds going faster
• Supply depot manufacturing level bonus increased from 1 to 2.
• Virtual World is now classified as an Approval improvement instead of a research one
• Upgrading of Entertainment districts moved from Colonial Bureacracy to Xeno Entertainment
• Throttled calls to message pump to reduce fan noise on PCs and make system more responsive.
• Added a MapSizePacingAdjustment() API to make it easier for devs to adjust pacing based on map size.
• Prestige victory now scaled by MapSizePacing.
• Balance pass on Prestige victory contributors
• Tech research cost now uses MapSizePacingAdjustment() resulting in much better pacing for research times.
• Max approval rating reduced from 100% to 99% (this isn't a North Korean election).
• Asteroids are more common
• Marginal planets have a smaller halo than better quality planets.
• Genius Grants policy now provides +1 to annovation awareness.
• Culture rings on starbases no longer require maint.
• Basic defensive armor now unlocked with Defensive Studies
• Updated prestige victory tooltip to be more descriptive
• Went through and updated all the alien text dialog to and from the player.
• Added a bunch of new alien dialog for the greetings screen.
• Added a bunch of new alien dialog for the diplomacy screens (both main and other topics) [really this is like 50 bullet points here but suffice to say, lots of new text].  
• Wrote specific AlienX talking to AlienY dialogs (like Drengin talking to a player playing as the Torians for instance) in many places.
• New file: FlavorText_UnknownAliens which provided unique descriptions written by Chris Bucholz of the various aliens (that aren't supported by our editor).
• Fixed typos in events.
• Fixed the rush tooltip to have it be X out of Y and to have a space after the number but before "credits".
• AI puts more effort into reviewing approval for determining its tax rate.
• Updated the flavor text system to support strings that have no preference weight provided. This means a lot of additional variance in the text players will see.
• Added new quest events based on each category of ideology. These will need testing and we still need to address the too much repeating quests issue.
• Added Krynn citizen units.
• Culture Ring modules now produce 1 influence per turn for colonies in their area.
• New module: Cultural Awareness module. Requires Universal Translator. 
• Removed Harmony Crystal requirement from Cultural Forum module

• Adjusted star cluster sizes to feel better at different settings.

• Tiny, Small, Medium ships now longer cost maint.  Large and huge ships cost 2.
• Prestige Victory adjusted so that citizens only count for .5 points per citizen.
• Made low quality planets visibly smaller on the map and in the planet list so that players can tell they aren't good core world candidates at a glance. (except for Artemis and Mars).
• Increased the number of stars at various sector sizes.
• Fixed issue where no matter what, a single sector map was always huge.
• Colony default crime reduced from 10% to 2% because sheesh, not every planet is space Detroit!
• Culture (ifnluence) districts now arrive with Universal Translator tech instead of Political Capital.
• Rush cost mult increased from 2 to 4.
• Pressure scientists executive order moved to require Xeno Research. (otherwise this is just a no brainer for the first turn).

We should have an update for the alpha testers next week.