Big items:
- Diplomacy and Events (More info available in these posts.)
- Population Morale System
- Sound effects
Notable smaller items include:
- Improved new player tutorials.
- Improved refit mechanics. (Related discussion here.)
- Various unimplemented technologies and racial special features
- The ability to filter parts / systems appearing in the ship designer screen.
- Improved UI layouts and cursors. (See also the UI FAQ.)
- The ability to change the zoom level of the the galaxy map.
- A reduced visual quality setting that should make it easier to play large maps on older/lower powered laptops.
There are also a number of things that we're really hoping to get finished in time for the release, but which aren't yet on the official "must have" list. These items include:
- An interactable tech tree visualization in the research screen.
* Last updated: 01/16/2016.