by Jimmer
Sacrificing early colony ships for research isn't the worst for Magellan - just hit as many tier 3 tiles as you can, to scoop up discovery tiles (and then go bankrupt to get them back)...you won't want to use colony ships on most of the tier 3 that you explore.Sentient Hull is fair, but becomes less awesome when you have the +3 computer discovery - you have to go missile, as you have no speed. (Fortunately, it doesn't appear they found any anti-missile techs, or were able to get missiles on their faster ships.)
As the Magellan, the Fusion Source gives you a couple of advantages - cheaper positron computers in terms of research cost, as well as the energy to pay for them. (I'm sure you put one on your cruiser instead of the nuclear drive!)
Cloaking Device is nice - it lets you hit people who are equal to your discs. The drawback is that if they hold onto their Build action until you can't react (or react due to economics), they drop killers on whatever ships made it through, wherever they stopped. (I did this with my star bases in my last game.)
Congrats on the win!