Here are all of the changes in the various patches.
1.017
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races can now build stations near starlane/wormholes (IotA)
now quests give extra credits, xp, and relations boosts the more systems away the goal is from the originator
fixed secondary item text not following your price comparison choice (Steve)
fixed auto equip not following your price comparison choice
fixed scavenger custom order or things like energy leechers (Tuidjy)
fixed giving alliance/war Drox rewards more than once (CaptainWinky) (IotA)
nearby stations now count as guards for planets (IotA)
increased BaseThrust from 50 to 55
fixed a few problems when transferring a quest when a planet is destroyed (Cockbite)
now cap scavenged components to 5 levels above planet level
fixed a couple issues with marine levels (Tuidjy) (IotA)
increased scavenge cost by 25%
changed PROTOCOL_VERSION to 20
fixed a problem where some races were getting marked as eliminated sometimes when player won the game (IotA)
race ships now use a better approximation of hull and engine values so a destroyed engine or a better researched engine make a difference
made galaxy selection UI widget larger (IotA)
fixed a crash when you have a drop down box selected and use the debug console command reloadmenus
reworked the extended characters in font so they all match correctly
reworked lose game menu to look better
added ancient specific explosion to ancient ships (IotA)
can no longer drop marines that are current boarding another ship (wrestless) (IotA)
added some text to galaxy highlight to explain a little about what the persistent galaxy stuff does (Steve) (IotA)
fixed a mutiny quest typo (Yindo)
fixed some MIRV capitalization issues (Valgor) (IotA)
reworded some galaxy selection stuff to make a little more clear (IotA)
fixed no orders to start a war text (Steve) (IotA)
improved can't board warning (wrestless) (IotA)