While I'm waiting for my ships to arrive, the Thalans are busy chasing after my other ships:

Great job, Hithesius.  You took out an unarmed freighter manned by civilians!  That must have been a real challenge for the mighty Thalan Empire.

Unfortunately, I can't do much about protecting the freighters until my ships are closer and even then, it's going to take some serious firepower to keep them safe while crossing right through Thalan space.  So I contact the Iconians and make a deal for four more fighters.  It's not much, but if they're interested in selling, I'm interested in buying!

Having now completed research on Advanced Materials, I'm moving on to Technology Progression I:

This is a lengthy project which prepares my space-faring people for the more complex technologies which they need to master.

Some of the AI-controlled empires will also research this before being able to access the rest of the tech tree.  The cost of researching it acts as a sort of gate, so if they do not yet have the necessary research infrastructure to research this, there's very little point in them trying to research the costly technologies beyond it.  Or in other words, 'you must be this smart to go any further'.

The tps for Tech Progression I are drawn from a number of technologies which come immediately afterwards, so it will actually be quicker to research those - when I'm done with this one, that is.  Space Weapons technology is available right after Research Academies, the two of them comprise Core Technologies VI.

Some races such as the Torians have a harder time getting this research done, despite what I have done to streamline their early tech trees, because they don't have much of a research advantage compared to other races.

I'm able to get a detailed scan of a Thalan heavy fighter as it arrives at Banfield II, near the Quendor system:

Although I have a squadron of three Iconian light fighters conveniently available to intercept the lone heavy fighter, I decide not to engage.  This single ship has comparable firepower to my squadron and although numbers might win the day, it's more useful to have this intel and still have my ships if they're needed.

However this single heavy fighter doesn't pass up the opportunity to pursue a pair of my fighters when they pass by the Quendor system.  Because of their agility they're able to get to Quendor II and take up defensive positions in orbit and fend off the one fighter.  They're able to do this because Interstellar Construction is a core technology which I've researched, and allows the construction of the Orbital Command Centre, allowing ships in orbit of one of my colonies to act like a fleet.

In no time at all I have all four of the Iconian fighters that I recently purchased ir orbit of Quendor II to protect it from any further attacks by the Thalans:

Although this is by no means a permanent solution to the Thalan aggression, it will buy me some time to finish my research.  And if my fighter pilots happen to get lucky shooting more thalan fighters into little pieces, so much the better!

It's time for another random event!

This time around it's a big funky wormhole.  I don't think I will get much benefit from it, since my colonies are just about nearing their population caps, but the other races will probably see some gains, and since more population in the galaxy means more tourists, I can say with some certainty that there will be some increase in tourism income this year.

Oh yeah, and N-1 calls to express his concerns about the growing dominance of the Thalan Empire:

When the evil sentient robots are saying they are scared, I guess it's time to be worried!

An economic boom immediately follows.  Normally you would think that stocks would be down considering there's an alien spaceship out there under the control of the galaxy's most violent prisoners.

The funky wormhole closes down, so reproductive rates across the galaxy are reportedly returning to normal.  Except among the Torians of course.

So I'm finally faced with a choice of weapons technologies to pursue:

I haven't tried missile weapons for some time.  Additionally, the Iconians have developed mass driver type weapons, while of course the Thalans have been working on beam weapons, so I would hate to be unoriginal and go for the same as those two.

I've been attempting to escort my freighters along the trade route:

Unfortunately, as I already mentioned, the Thalan heavy fighters are a match for a squadron of three Iconian light fighters, and at the end of the engagement I only have one left.  Reinforcements will take five weeks to arrive.  I can only hope that Hithesius is reluctant to leave his nearby outpost undefended, because there's another heavy fighter stationed there.

I'm presented with another intriguing ethical choice:

The Terran Alliance is at war with an alien race which has attacked without provocation and this man is threatening to undermine morale.  If there have been sacrifices, they have have been made with good reason and to ensure the survival of my people.  I will make an example of this man, but I don't need to kill him to do so.  If he is publicly discgraced, nobody will listen to him.  Problem solved.

Meanwhile, the Yor decide that they want in on the action as well:

Nice!  The sentient evil robots want to make war on my worst enemy.  I can just about imagine all the hamsters of my world dancing joyfully.

The Thalans have been doing their best to take out my other mining starbase, but I'm fairly sure I will get a constructor out to repair it before they do.  Meanwhile, I may be able to restart mining of that morale resource near Quendor, if someone doesn't snatch it.

Nice.

So, couple of questions - does everyone have weapons by the point? And have you met those minors yet?

Aside from a few minor changes to the tech tree, the minors are just the same.  I have plans to create a stripped-down souped-up tech tree specifically for them.  However it's still the case that even with a modded personality, you need to quick-save and reload at the start of the game for them to go off colonising.  It's something that I think I would forget to do at the start of a new game.

I've met the Jessuins so far.  The other minor race must be over on the other side of the galaxy where I can't reach them right now.  Bloody Thalans.

The military power graph indicates that the Arceans have the greatest military power:

The others are of course the Thalans and Yor, and trailing behind are the Terrans (me), Iconians and Korx.

The Drengin are working on Mass Driver Theory and when they do start building fighters it's almost certain that they will become a dominant military power.

The Altarians, Torians and LMT Corporate are a bit further behind.  In the colony grab, the Altarians only got 7 planets, so I'm not sure how well they're going to do this game.

So having finished research of Basic Logistics, I moved on to the first of the Space Mining techs.  There's only one level available to me anyway at this stage, but the extra industrial input is definitely welcome.

Speaking of industry, I'm looking into Xeno Factory Construction:

Now it would be a bit quicker to research Xeno Industrial Theory, and I would be able to build a Manufacturing Capital and a United Builders Factory (which is a Super Project which effectively gives you an early Manufacturing Centre).

However, it would be a shame to get a bunch of Xeno Factories built and then have to upgrade them to Advanced Factories anyway.  Why not get some Advanced Factories running as soon as I'm able (seeing as how I have money to burn here!) and give myself the industrial capacity to really crank some fighter squadrons, hmm?

Given that I don't have that sort of industrial capacity yet, Enhanced Logistics has to wait for a bit.  Speaking of Logistics, I don't actually know how many ships the Thalans can squeeze into a fleet at the moment.  Better get some Espionage spending going.

You see here that Manufacturing Centres is not available right after Xeno Factory Construction.  I would need to complete Technology Progression II to unlock that technology.  This means that I need to work with what improvements I can research in a reasonable time.

I'm currently striking a balance between research and shipbuilding:

If my agents indicate that the Thalans already have Enhanced Logistics, then I will need to spend more on research in order to even the odds.  If on the other hand I find that they have not yet mastered that technology, I could increase funding for manufacturing, especially once I have built factories, and repel their fighters without much fear of being swarmed by superior numbers.

A new problem emerges:

How fortunate for me that I'm in control of a morale resource then!  I do not need to lower taxes at present, but overall approval has lowered to 62%.  The other major powers are similarly affected.  I'm betting on a Precursor artefact leaching the happiness from the various people, since those arcaheologists are always unearthing things and activating them by accident.

It comes as no huge surprise when the Drengin announce that they are joining the war too:

Against the Thalans?  Not us Terrans?  Well all right then.  The more the merrier!

This means, in case you weren't counting, that the Thalans are now at war with four races.  I'm half-expecting the Jessuins to join in the dogpile at this point, if they have any military at all.

Another ethical choice follows:

Since we have a healthy number of credits in the treasury at the moment, I see no reason to risk the lives of productive, tax-paying miners.  But if we can send some droids in and get some of these precious minerals out, it could help the war effort in some small way.

The Drengin also consider the Altarian Resistance to be easy pickings:

However in declaring war on the Altarians they have also provoked the other goodly races, namely the Iconians and Torians.

The Drengin have already been building fighters armed with space cannons, but they have also had a considerable influx of military might in the form of Super Dominator corvettes:

Thanks to the mod, they're not actually all that super, being armed with a single railgun instead of two.  Of course in large numbers during the early game they can be a bit of a pain.  I almost feel sorry for the Thalans.

Incidentally, now that the Thalans are badly outnumbered, they won't consider signing a peace treaty with me unless I agree to fight the Drengin, or I pay them a couple of thousand bcs.

Your mod is very intriguing.  I like how you set up the Core Technologies and Technology Progressions to make a stepwise ascent up the tech ladder.  Ima have to go DL it and peruse the TechTrees.

Great AAR; thanks.