Hyomoto, thanks for the input!
When colony ship speed is concerned, I tried to make up for the very annoying (and tactically unrealistic) fact that you can insta-colonize in this game and there is nothing anyone can do about that. Colonization of a planet is, or should be, a channelled thing, where a ship needs to actually "build up" the initial settlement before it goes into action. Now, if colonization were a regular ability, it would have been a simple matter to simply add some graphix and a timed delay to simulate this and also give the contesting force a chance to destroy the ship and interrupt the process.
This would also make using multiple colony ships on a hotly contested planet viable, as the enemy would be required o blow up all of them to prevent you from claiming the planet.
Alas, this is not so - colonization is hardcoded to be instant.
Therefore, a colonization ship should take time in another area - actually reaching the planet. This particular woe will be deeply felt by Xin players in the upcoming Last Stand mod, where the Seeder Pods can be insta-popped by a shot or two.
This makes it a viable strategy again to use multiple colony ships at the same time - unless the planet is really heavily contested, at least one of them should make it through.
Recon ship speeds were decreased to keep them in line with the rest of the ships in game. If they were left unchanged, you would en up with nigh indestructible scouts (due to them being able to outrun everything with impunity), which would make it impossible to create "blind spots" for the enemy by specifically not allowing any recon ships to get through a particular chokepoint. They are still the fastest ships in the game though.
Also, good note on the reinforcement thing - alas, its working as intended. 
The thing is, I wanted to reward a player which has a methodical approach to front line management. This includes thinking about how your front lines will shift and adjusting the position of your forward bases (shipyards most notably) and reserve fleets accordingly. Yes, even having a fleet on the wrong side of a gravity well should matter. This is not so apparent now, but when the Last Stand goes live, the increased size of gravity wells will make that quite apparent.
In this game, it is quite hard to actually outmaneuver your opponent on a tactical scale. Things like flanking maneuvers make little difference in a confined gravity well where ship speeds allow fleets to "get over there" quite fast. This mod attempts to tweak things a bit so that these tactical nuances become doable. Yes, you can play well without employing them - but if you do, you will be rewarded by extra success. At least, that's the goal.
Naturally, things may not be prefectly done - that's why I appreciate the input as it helps me determine what does and what simply does not work.
