The Arceans is a cool race to play. Has the Thalan’s tech tree been bested? maybe

I am also really liking the Arcean tree.  My original attraction was the movement bonuses from buildings. 

I just wish they were still bright yellow in color...

I miss the bright yellow....     they are this dull ugly color that makes me sad....

Tou know you can  copy the race and change the color

The one bad thing about the Acreans, indeed perhaps the ONLY bad thing about them, is that -1.5 to morale at the beginning.  Puts a bit of a crimp in the 100% approval bonuses strategy for the early game.  But if one can luck into some Harmony Crystals and/or trade for them, then it's lights out.

Thinking about it, and doing testing on an Insane map seems to bear this out, that approval penalty hurts more on larger maps due to the time it takes to research techs scaling with the number of colonizable planets on a map.  It's relatively easy to beeline to approval boosting techs/modules on smaller maps.  A bit more difficult when each individual tech takes longer to research. 

Perhaps the biggest WOWZA for the Acreans is that their speed boosting buildings are separate.  That is, yes, they are Player Only.  But one does not upgrade to the next level.  Put all three on three separate +3 military tiles (if one has three of them) and then surround each of those with military boosting buildings (if one can clear the tile space [not a given])...

<contemplates for a moment>

Well, Warp Speed takes a whole new meaning!

Yup, that -1.5 moral was a bitch early on but by early mid game i had it under control.  The first time i played them i did not really study the tree, i kept finding the holly crap look at what this building does. Next game my standard research proprieties went out the window

I figured the movement boosting buildings not upgrading to each other was a bug.

Easy assumption given all the others:

1.  Stellar Forge not doing anything

2.  Temple of Valor saying it gives a whopping +50% planetary defense bonus per adjacency pt but in fact not giving anything

3.  Movement boosting / penalizing starbase modules effects reversed speeding up enemy ships and slowing theirs.

First step to getting back into the galactic empire scene would be to get their crap to actually work.  Those techs are as comforting as testing Microsoft pacemaker software beta 0.1

Well, the Arceans just took a slight hit as their starbase range has been lowered from 7 to 6.  Not the biggest hit in the world, but it does nerf their SB advantage a slight bit.

When did this happen?

Opt-in patch released today.  The Military Ring range bonus that all factions get was also nerfed (perhaps more than intended)