While we're not making any promises, we plan to have Sins of a Solar Empire v1.04 ready this week.  v1.04 is the first serious attempt to user-requested game balancing. 

We've gotten a lot of feedback in the past few weeks with some great ideas on tweaks to each of the different sides to make the game more enjoyable to players.  Obviously a lot of time has had to be spent play testing (and yes, we get paid to do this, so there, mom!) these changes to make sure the result truly is a more satisfactory experience.

Often times, what seems balanced (or unbalanced) on paper does not work out quite that way on-line. There are a lot of factors that just have to be played to be seen.  Moreover, a player's skill level along with strategy can completely alter one's perspective on balancing which has been both a challenge and quite enjoyable to observe. 

Both Stardock and Ironclad play multiplayer games pretty regularly (we don't usually advertise who we are) and it's really quite refreshing seeing new strategies being developed over time that we never would have considered.  This is one of the reasons why updates such as v1.04 will continue to be needed -- as players come up with new, innovative strategies, we will have to continue to update the game to ensure that no single strategy becomes too dominant -- this is what you pay us for, after all.

If all goes well, we hope to arrange a game night with the entire community.