Here are all of the changes in the various patches.
1.026
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added a new difficulty level - Ultimate, everything but player/components can go up to level 200
now active thrusters can take you above the speed cap (Tuidjy)
fixed secrets being empty a lot at high levels (Tuidjy)
races will no longer give you contacts for free (tim14916)
now damage per energy used by Big Bang adds tactical damage bonus (Tuidjy)
increased Geomagnetic Storm reuse time from 3.0 to 5.0
decreased Pulsar per leve damage from 25.0/35.0 to 17.5/27.5
Brunt can now put swarm missiles in their racial slot (lancefighter)
attack & defense now show more correct hit chances when in higher difficulties (Ludak021)
now default Drox involvement to Light instead of Minimal
stations now give much more xp and relations gain
non active crew now has happiness drops/expects to be paid (only half as fast as active crew though)
now show component icons in upper right corner of highlight text
added a splitter to component text
made joystick deadzone configurable
there is now a 5 second delay before you win a sector so you can see your final actions (Steve)
now resume text will show level, race, and character options (once saved with new version)
now Drox alliance/war order when completed shows in green on Drox screen (Steve)
changed PROTOCOL_VERSION to 26
probes now highlight attack correctly (Steve)
simplified some code in Sentient::updateDynamicStat
fixed returning to fullscreen twice
now cap MaxTurnSpeed to 1000 to keep ship controllable with keys (Tuidjy)
now reuse timer display on icon survives moving component to different slots (Evan)
now restarting a challenge sector will reset your maps and gates correctly (Evan/Chumpy)