Nice to see ongoing support for the game, and the changes look good. The nerfs on the pirates hopefully means fewer instances of pirates just roflstomping interstellar empires for 250 credits at a time.
On the other hand, as a wishlist sort of thing, I'd like to see a toggle in the win conditions for turning off AI surrender in a future patch. Sometimes it's nice to have the AI throw in the towel, but I've had nearly all my Rebellion games end with the AI giving up after one major (or not so major) battle, even Hard AIs. Sometimes it gives up if I expand too fast and outpace it. Heck, once it gave up after I built my Titan and I'd never even seen their ships (It was a huge map)! The "Continue Playing" function seems to also lock out achievements like Archeologist, so no dice there. I tend to play single player, so it's not like I'm under a time crunch. Maybe I'm in the minority, but I have fond memories of the long, knock-down drag-out wars of vanilla SoSE with one or more determined AI resisting to the very end. Having it as a selectable victory condition would allow people who prefer the AI to surrender after it's hopeless to still have it, while allowing for folks like me to engage in a little comp-stomping every now and then.