Love this game and glad it's available. However, on my old WIn95 computer the Antarans had a cruiser sized ship that would launch three little blue fighter craft. I have played a few dozen iterations with this updated version of MOOII, and no Antaran fighters at all. Are they missing? Do they only show up on a particular difficulty level?

You have to enable "Antarans Attack" in the settings menu when you start a new game. They should show up around turn 150 or so and randomly attack a new system every 10-15 turns (on Impossible difficulty, I think later on lower difficulties).

THey initially show up with 1-3 frigate Raiders. Once someone (not necessarily you) defeats those, they start sending more powerful ships. The cruiser you mention maybe shows up on the 4th or 5th raid, if the previous raids have taken casualties. They sometimes also send a battleship with Reflector Fields in the late game.

Usually by turn 100 or so, one of the alien races has acquired Dimensional Portal somehow, which you can see as a choice if you "demand tech" during an audience. That tech is only available if the Antarans have been enabled. So if you see it, but they haven't shown up yet, then just give them some more time.

One thing I've noticed is that they show up lots earlier and often with more raiding ships when playing standard start rather than pre-warp start.