[PvK]

Well one of the best ways to see what's changed is to read the change history since 1.49 (the Last pre-Gold Version).

Some of the changes that make the most difference for me include:

* Player move sequence in combat is no longer determined unfairly by player number on the player list.

* Various modding improvements that make mods like Proportions possible, changing the size of population units, allowing mounts to do interesting things such as affecting specific component families and not just weapons, slowing the population reproduction rate to less than "insanely fast", and additional weapon damage types (1/4 damage to shields, etc.). And of course, the various mods and mod improvements this has inspired.

* Added entries in settings.txt that affect the way some game mechanics work.

* Improved sound effects.

* Having shields protect against engine-destroying weapons.

* Increased ship and unit limits from 5000 to 20000 per empire.

* Having planetary bombardment not shoot off the troops during Strategic combat, so troops can serve more of a purpose than before.

* Drones.

* Tons of bug fixes.

* AI improvements.

* Improvements to game mechanics such as fixing the silly ways that special armor types worked (or didn't work); improving the supply system (more effects, etc), huge formations of ships, improved retrofit limits, crew conVersion, etc.

PvK