Guys,
I think you will like this one and the patch WILL be released in the next few days.  Here is everything since 1.19:
Version History for Space Empires IV
---------------------------------------------------
Version 1.26:
1.  Fixed   - "Bits Index Error" when generating a quadrant map
              while setting up a new game. 
2.  Fixed   - Access Violation sometimes when exiting the Units
              Launch\Recover window.
3.  Fixed   - The Retrofit selection window should only show 
              designs that you have the technology for. 
4.  Fixed   - You should not see the "Blockaded" text on a planet
              report if you cannot actually see the planet directly.
5.  Fixed   - In the Ships window, sorting by Size would not work
              correctly for ships.
6.  Fixed   - Ground combat would not change the statistics of the
              troops.
7.  Fixed   - The text "Blockaded" would not show on a planet which
              had enemy troops on it. 
8.  Fixed   - Mothablled ships will not count towards your score. 
Version 1.25:
1.  Fixed   - The meteor strike event was happening every turn.
2.  Fixed   - Fighter Bays had an incorrect description.
3.  Changed - Fighter Bays now launch 4 fighters per game turn.
              Satellite Bays launch 4 satellites per game turn.
              Mine Layers launch 2 mines per game turn.
4.  Fixed   - Simultaneous Game: The movement replay log would 
              cut out when a combat occured. 
5.  Added   - Game Option: No Ruins on planets.
6.  Added   - Game Option: Can only colonize planets of the same 
              planet type as your home planet (regardless of 
              technology).
7.  Added   - Game Option: Can only colonize planets with the same
              atmosphere as your home planet.
Version 1.24:
1.  Fixed   - Intelligence project "Order Snafu" should effect only one
              ship, not an entire fleet. 
2.  Fixed   - Ground Combat: Satellites, Mines, Fighters, and Weapon Platforms 
              do not get to defend in ground combat. 
3.  Fixed   - Ground Combat: Troops should target other enemy troops first 
              before firing on satellites, mines, fighters, etc. 
4.  Fixed   - Multiple minefields will show up sometimes when you try to 
              lay mines where a minefield of yours already exists. 
5.  Fixed   - AI was not updating its ships with the latest engines late
              in the game.
6.  Fixed   - AI should check if the planet already has the desired atmosphere
              before building an atmospheric converter. 
7.  Fixed   - AI should scrap any atmospheric converters if the desired 
              atmosphere has been attained on the planet. 
8.  Fixed   - AI should fill up remaining space on designs with basic armor. 
9.  Changed - Increased the rate at which fighters and satellites can be
              launched during a game turn.
10. Fixed   - Meteor strike event would sometimes cause no damage. 
11. Fixed   - Cluster quadrant layout would not quite work with system amounts
              greater than 200.
12. Added   - Added a log message which is sent to an empire for each construction
              queue which fails to build an item because of a lack of resources from
              the empire.
13. Fixed   - Fighter Groups were not moving at the speed of the slowest fighter.
14. Fixed   - Simultaneous Game: Fighter Groups would sometimes launch from planets
              without full supplies.
15. Fixed   - Population modifiers in Settings.txt were limited to 20 entries.
16. Fixed   - Combat Simulation: In the Fleet Transfer Window, the fleet picture
              would not show up sometimes for a fleet in the list. 
17. Fixed   - Integer Overflow during Finite Resources games on the AI's turn. 
18. Changed - Increased the damage for the Anti-Proton Beam family (thanks to 
              Daynarr).
Version 1.23:
1.  Fixed   - AI should only build one sensor buoy at a time. 
2.  Fixed   - Some of the empire files were saved with all of the ministers
              turned on. 
3.  Fixed   - In some circumstances, the AI will design Base Space Yards with
              more than one space yard.
4.  Fixed   - Cloaked ships were triggering population unhappiness.
5.  Fixed   - A race that has been destroyed should show "Conquered" for the 
              treaty in its race report window.
6.  Added   - Added a new tab to the Strategies window called "Damage". This 
              tab allows you to set the percentage damage you want to inflict
              on different kinds of enemy ships before moving on to a new
              target. So for ships, if it says 80%, then your ships will 
              damage the ship up to 80% and then will switch to a new target. 
              If no other targets are available, your ships will go back and
              finish off those remaining ships. There is also a setting for
              "Damage targets until all weapons gone". If this is set true,
              then your ships will fire on enemy ships until all of their
              weapons are gone, regardless of the percentage damage setting. 
7.  Fixed   - Sometimes the AI Resupply minister would give a Divide by Zero
              error.
8.  Fixed   - The Last patch caused the display of the letters "RSY" in the 
              system window to not work. 
9.  Fixed   - The AI was not balancing armed and non-armed ships correctly 
              when considering a trade. 
10. Fixed   - Typo in the SectType.txt file.
11. Fixed   - Mothballed ships were blockading enemy planets. 
12. Fixed   - Improved the AI's use of seeking weapons in combat.
13. Fixed   - Improved the AI's firing of weapons before or after moving.
14. Fixed   - Sometimes the AI would not fire seekers on a target.
15. Fixed   - Tactical Combat: When a seeker destroyed a colony, there would
              be no explosion.
16. Fixed   - Tactical Combat: When seekers were launched by a planet, the 
              selection icon would show for the planet and all of the seekers
              at the same time. 
17. Fixed   - Maximum Weapons Range strategy would sometimes cause the ship to 
              move closer to the target. 
18. Fixed   - You should only be able to scrap satellite Groups and fighter
              Groups if a spaceyard is present.
19. Fixed   - Combat Replay would show the shields for a ship that was hit with 
              a shield skipping weapon.
20. Fixed   - You should not be able to add a minefield to a combat simulation.
21. Fixed   - Vehicles in the Combat Simulation design list were not being
              sorted by name. 
22. Fixed   - Improved the AI's determination of when to skip an item in its 
              purchase list if there is no cargo space available to hold it. 
23. Fixed   - The AI would try to build defense bases at planets without 
              spaceyards. 
24. Fixed   - Mothballed ships should not effect happiness at all. 
25. Change  - Increased the amount of happiness troops on a planet generate.
26. Change  - Increased the amount of happiness a ship in orbit generates for
              the planet.
27. Fixed   - Added the field "Maximum population for abandon planet order" to 
              Settings.txt. This will prevent people from abandoning a planet
              with a full population of rioting people.
28. Fixed   - After an abandon planet, a new colony on the planet would start
              at the same happiness as the Last population. 
29. Change  - Changed the starting happiness of colonies to "Happy" instead of
              "Jubilant".
30. Fixed   - A mothballed ship that was the only ship in a system could not be
              attacked by the other players. 
31. Fixed   - Simultaneous Game: Reasons for a ship failing to load cargo, drop
              cargo, or lay mines were not being added to the log. 
32. Change  - Cloaked ships cannot lay mines, launch units, or recover units. 
33. Fixed   - System level point modifiers were being summed instead of max'd.
Version 1.22:
1.  Fixed   - Fixed a few memory leaks. 
2.  Fixed   - AI was not using cloaking correctly.
3.  Fixed   - Fixed up some of the constraints on what a cloaked ship 
              can do.
4.  Fixed   - AI will choose Stealth Armor for its designs instead of 
              Cloaking Devices.
5.  Fixed   - AI would fill up remaining space on its designs with 
              regular shield generators (not phased shield generators).
6.  Fixed   - Maximum number of ships and units per player in a game was
              not being enforced correctly. In Game Setup, Maximum number
              of units (in space) has been changed so that the units can be 
              in space or in cargo. Increased the starting maximums for
              units.
7.  Fixed   - Games using Multiplayer Save Game Path would try to get
              the combat replay and statistics file from this location,
              instead of where the savegame was loaded from. 
8.  Fixed   - Ships destroyed with ramming were not providing experience. 
9.  Fixed   - Ships destroyed with ramming were not add in to the design
              statistics.
10. Fixed   - Units carried by a ship were not being tallied in the unit's
              design statistics. 
11. Fixed   - If an item that is in a trade has been lost, destroyed, 
              captured, etc. before the trade is excepted, it will be listed
              in the trade as "unavailable".
12. Fixed   - Jettisoned units weren't being tallied in that unit's 
              design statistics. 
13. Fixed   - Ships or Units that are received as gifts, will also have
              their design available as an Enemy Design.
14. Fixed   - The notes in the Galaxy Window would allow you to see the 
              names of systems that you had not explored. 
15. Fixed   - Planets that are in systems that you have seen, were not
              showing a green or red star if they were colonizable. 
16. Fixed   - Omnipresent view of systems would allow you to see 
              cloaked ships. 
17. Fixed   - Added a new restriction that you cannot edit a prototype
              design if it has been added to one of your construction 
              queues.
18. Fixed   - Change directory in the Load Game window would error if the
              Multiplayer Save Game Path was invalid. 
19. Fixed   - Improved the AI ship design based on the terrific "Mephisto
              Mod".
20. Fixed   - Transports with a "Capture Planet" strategy were not attempting
              to drop troops on the planet.
21. Fixed   - Colony planets in the Combat Simulator window were showing the
              incorrect player color for the population bars (or possibly no
              bars at all). 
22. Fixed   - Planets should not show up in the Combat Simulator's Fleet
              Transfer window. 
23. Fixed   - Type priorities settings for targeting were not working in 
              certain situations. 
24. Fixed   - The Ship\Planet report for a piece in a combat simulation
              would sometimes show the wrong status icons. 
25. Fixed   - Sometimes multiple stats and event files would be copied for
              each savegame. 
26. Fixed   - For a Launch All Units order, if a unit failed to launch
              early in the list, then all later units in the list would 
              not be attempted. 
27. Fixed   - Sometimes the treaty grid would show two races having two
              different treaties with each other. 
28. Fixed   - If a unit group was at a location in space with other unit 
              Groups, then the unit Groups amount number and the number
              of space objects present would overlap. 
29. Fixed   - Sometimes the Colonies Window (Facilities tab) would list
              the same facility type on multiple lines. 
30. Fixed   - Ai was not checking correctly for nearby enemies to potential
              colonization sites. Improved the AI colonization determination
              a bit. 
Version 1.21:
1.  Fixed   - Range check error when you have 255 systems and you give
              a ship orders to move to another system. 
2.  Fixed   - Increased planet finite resource starting values.
3.  Added   - Added default values in the Settings.txt file for the 
              Maximum number of ships and units in the game. 
4.  Fixed   - AI was not always using damaged ships or sending them
              to be repaired.
5.  Fixed   - Increased the speed of combat execution.
6.  Fixed   - AI was not spreading out targeting of seekers based on
              anticipated damage to target.
7.  Fixed   - Fleet leaders were still not detecting correctly when they
              were surrounded in combat and should break formation. 
8.  Fixed   - The Drushocka and Praetorian were building fighters with
              only Shield Depleters.
9.  Fixed   - Jubilant has been mispelled for quite a while. 
10. Fixed   - Added empire files for all empires.
11. Fixed   - Krill, Terran, and Toltayan empires were not always using 
              all of their racial points. 
12. Fixed   - Combat Replay would not show the vehicle report when moving 
              from a fighter group to a new fighter group. 
13. Fixed   - Improved AI's use of fleets.
14. Fixed   - Improved AI's used of Planet creators. 
Version 1.20:
1.  Fixed   - A colony with no population could still suffer from 
              a firestorm event.
2.  Fixed   - Ground combat would continue on the turn that a surrender
              took place. 
3.  Fixed   - High numbers of systems would not work correctly using the 
              Cluster quadrant layout. 
4.  Added   - Added fields to the Settings.txt file to specify what values
              and abilities a newly created storm will receive. 
5.  Fixed   - Changed the text for the Cloaks to say the correct level
              of scanning/detection it prevents. 
6.  Fixed   - AI vehicle design files were not using the new ability
              names for Combat To Hit Add and Combat to Hit Dec. 
7.  Fixed   - Sometimes a damaged ship that was retrofitted would 
              result in undamaged components. 
8.  Fixed   - If the order of a construction queue was changed, it was
              not clearing the time for the item currently under 
              construction. 
9.  Changed - Changed Emergency Build Rate to 150%. 
10. Fixed   - When you exit a combat replay, the combat music would keep
              playing. 
11. Fixed   - In Tactical Combat, Clear All Group Assignments would not
              redraw the display to clear the group icons. 
12. Fixed   - "Bad Index" error from the Colonies window. 
13. Fixed   - If a race had a treaty of Subjugation or Protectorate, their
              research points would be capped at 50,000.
14. Fixed   - The Up Arrow on the Report window would display over the 
              Comps or Cargo display when closing the Scrap window. 
15. Fixed   - Fill Build Queue was not checking if the items were valid
              for the empires current technology level. 
16. Fixed   - When loading a previously saved empire into a different player
              number than previously, their designs would be messed up. 
17. Fixed   - Simultaneous Game - The Seeking Attack order would not cleared
              if it was targeted on a planet and the colony had been destroyed.
18. Fixed   - Improved the AI's scrapping of uneeded facilities in a finite
              resource game. 
19. Fixed   - Remove tech area Ship Construction level 10 (it was empty).
20. Fixed   - Decreased the AI's armor usage on their designs. 
21. Fixed   - Increase the AI's point defense usage on their designs. 
22. Fixed   - AI was not using its AI Strategy file correctly.
23. Fixed   - AI was not giving the Kamikaze ships the correct strategy. 
24. Fixed   - In a finite resources game, planets would still produce resources
              even after they had reached a value of 0. 
25. Fixed   - If a player's fleet encountered enemy mines in the same sector
              as his own mines, he would receive a message about his minefield
              being triggered against "enemy" ships. 
26. Fixed   - Improved the description for the Boarding Parties and Security Stations. 
27. Added   - Added fields to the Settings.txt file to specify a maximum number of 
              mines or satellties that a player can have in a sector. 
28. Fixed   - The Colony Window would display a patch of white if there were a large
              number of displayed facilities. 
29. Added   - Added a confirmation message when you try to send a surrender message.
30. Fixed   - Improved the Transport Minister so that they only move populations to
              planets with atmospheres they can breathe. 
31. Changed - Changed the Path.txt file so that it now lists a new directory to use. 
              This directory can contain replacements directory for all of the 
              directories that SE4 uses. If a directory is present in the mod 
              directory, all of the files that SE4 needs must be present. So if you
              replace the Data directory, your new directory must have all of the 
              data files present. The only exception to this rule is for bitmaps. 
              If a bitmap cannot be found in a mod directory, the game will then 
              look back into the original SE4 directory to find it. In this way, you
              can replace everything in the game, but not need to include all of the
              graphics as well. 
32. Fixed   - Range check error during combat.
33. Fixed   - Point Blank strategy sometimes would cause ships to run away from the 
              target. 
34. Fixed   - Range Check Error with a large number of units in a group during combat.
35. Fixed   - Range Check Error with huge numbers of shields being generated during combat.
36. Fixed   - Range Check Error with a fleet of more than 256 ships during combat.
------------------
Sarge is coming...
Richard Arnesen
Director of Covert Ops
Shrapnel Games
http://www.shrapnelgames.com