Hi!
Can you give more details about the game you're playing? Version, galaxy size, initial moves...

BR, Iztok

Given that this is in "beta reports" a day after beta4 came out, one would imagine that it would be TA related...

I played an Altarian game on a small map with 3 AI's at painful last night and I noticed the economic crunch after the colony rush while playing an all research lab strategy.

The Altarian manufacturing buildings and research labs have a much larger maintenance cost than most other races (5 cost for 6 research for the first lab and it doesn't get any better as you upgrade), so you are going to want to get less of them and rely on the numerous unique galactic achievements and techs to boost their output while using less tiles for dedicated research or industry and more for unique goodies and econ buildings.

Also make use of the singular 75% morale boosting building on Altaria so that you can crank your tax rate up to evil levels really early without a serious morale hit. That coupled with the economic capitol on a 12 billion pop world should balance your budget. Finally, be certain to get the special temples/shrines and precursor techs researched as soon as you finish with the key economic techs.

I hope this helps, the Altarians are very different now, but overall they are much better with their speed boost and extremely potent hp and defenses on their ships in the late game. Also note that they get access to the relatively OP beam weapon line that reaches disruptors after only 12 techs so the -20 weapons penalty is easily offset.