Lol yes Slave Trade Routes were very bad before, we always had to be sure to unlock them right before unlocking the awesome Luxury Trade Routes so we got the good type for the rest of the game and weren't stuck with these.

If you've made them even weaker, that's completely, and rather hilariously, the opposite of what was needed. I'll have to remember to fix this in my mod hehe.

Opt-in updates (10/2)

Base Game

Gameplay / Balance

• Prototype Hyperdrive base mass use reduced from 8 to 6 but now uses 10% of the ship's mass.
• Prototype Hyperdrive moves reduced from 5 to 2 to conform to other component performances.
• Thrusters made smaller but cost more.
• Thrusters now faster.
• Fixed typos in Tutorial_Refuge_FlavorText.xml and added in the tutorial text to explain changes from 2.5.

UI 

• Fixed quirkiness with the "Allow Clear Queue" governor option 
• Fixed issue where having an empty modifier list in the improvement tooltip would mess up the display
• Added confirmation for when obsoleting a ship design in the designer landing window

Crusade

Gameplay / Balance

Prototype Hyperdrive moves reduced from 5 to 2 to conform to other component performances.

UI

• Fixed quirkiness with the "Allow Clear Queue" governor option 
• Fixed issue where having an empty modifier list in the improvement tooltip would mess up the display
• Added confirmation for when obsoleting a ship design in the designer landing window

I would like to see "auto upgrade" installed modules on star bases come back like it was in the base game.  When you get an upgrade for example to mining, I get fed up going through my list of star bases to manually upgrade.  Click SB list, double click to get to SB, double click again to install module, click done to exit, then repeat for each base.  Equates to hundreds of click every time you research something, absolute waste of time and I'll get RSI doing it.   Even if you have to put in a yes button with a popup for each base it would be infinitely better.

Updates 10/7

Base

• High level factories require Durantium to build.
• Fusion Power Plant requires 1 anti-matter to build
• Research Cloister promethion cost reduced from 10 to 5
• Cities can be built any number of times on a planet but now have 1 promethion cost. The idea is that if you have lots of Durantium, you should probably build up with Factories. If you have lots of Promethion, you can build up with cities.
• Added personality traits to Diplomacy Report Window
• Made the planet window not display manufacturing for military if the planet isn't sponsoring a shipyard
• Fixed issue where if an opponent's planet had stationed ships, but you didn't have enough espionage to see them, the "Eject All" button would still show up and be clickable
• Eject all button on planet UI of planets that are not yours
• Fix for odd behavior in MP that can result in a crash for the host in the United Planets system.
• Disabled the required win ratio for UP resolutions because no one really understood it.  
• Fixed issue where the resource log wasn't being updated for administrators whenever you bought a mercenary
• Fixed issue where you could get infinite legions if you had a stationed general on a planet

Crusade

• Research improvements now have a maint of 0.5
• Research buildings no longer have a Promethion cost
• Research based Wonders require Arnor Spice to construct
• There's no limit on the number of cities you can have on a planet but they now cost 1 promethion in addition to food.  Again, the idea is that if you have lots of Durantium, use factories to increase the productivity of your population but if you have lots of promothion then people are probably a better bet.
• Added personality traits to Diplomacy Report Window
• Made the planet window not display manufacturing for military if the planet isn't sponsoring a shipyard
• Fixed issue where if an opponent's planet had stationed ships, but you didn't have enough espionage to see them, the "Eject All" button would still show up and be clickable
• Eject all button on planet UI of planets that are not yours
• Fix for odd behavior in MP that can result in a crash for the host in the United Planets system.
• Disabled the required win ratio for UP resolutions because no one really understood it.  
• Fixed issue where the resource log wasn't being updated for administrators whenever you bought a mercenary
• Fixed issue where you could get infinite legions if you had a stationed general on a planet

Maybe that's why Steam is showing me "Updates queued" but won't actually do the update even when I click on "start download now".  

Well, glad (sort of...) I'm not the only one! Thought it quite odd how Steam refuses to download anything other than 49.3kb... Was planning on a good play session tonight but it looks like that isn't going to happen.

EDIT: Just started to d/l for me here, too!

It's downloading for me too, if by downloading you mean stuck at 25.3 MB and an estimated time to finish of 132 days.

Update: Finally finished  

Cumulative addition why is that a bad thing. 

Trade doesnt just effect economics historically, but effect science, economics, manufacturing, approval. That would be more accurate. So much that there is no other way to keep up scientifically.

Still disagree about population being that significant, but game wise it is hard to fix. We might have property wise this is true, but if you produce goods for yourself, and no one else how does that help. In order for population logic to work you need factories or businesses

Just some things I've noticed while farting around with the game:

I didn't give a single thing in exchange, just asked them to declare war and they were more than happy to!

Here you can see the words are overlapping for this starbase's info.

I've noticed a few times that planets will have a "0% Raw Production" and am not sure if this is a mistake (why put the info there if it doesn't do anything, you could list a ton of things the planet doesn't provide) or there is some other mechanic involved here that I'm not getting that will show an actual percentage later on. Just thought I'd mention/ask about it.

EDIT: To fix a link and spelling...

It seems that Cities have been changed from +0.5 Population per level to +10% Population Cap per level. This an extremely bad idea. This results in exponential population growth.  I was a little confused after building 2 cities on my homeworld to find that I had 17.6 Population (11 +60%). After I build my next City, I'll have 28 max Population (14 +100%). ANd yes, I will have enough Morale to be at 100% Approval because I am playing Benevolent.