Overall quite satisfied with the purchase; it's a fun game. Some specific thoughts and feedback, numbered to hopefully make it easier if anyone wants to respond to specific points. (Note that while some of these - like number one - are (in my not-so-humble opinion) serious issues that should be fixed, others are more subjective balance questions that should be considered with at least one proverbial grain of salt.)
1: Stellar Surge Beam sound is really painfully loud compared to other in-game sound effects - I have to take my headphones off any time these things fire. Also, volume multiplications for multiple weapons firing needs a cap; you can get similarly painful sound effect volume out of having an entire fleet fire normal weapons simultaneously. (I have, after the fact, found that I can crank game volume down below the one-pip mark by telling Windows to reduce volume for the application as a whole. I also rather feel this is a hack that shouldn't be needed; I'm guessing the game was never tested with earbud headphones that don't have a separate volume control?)
2: I had a bug pop up complaining about some sort of lua error - apologies here, I clicked the 'submit save' button but failed to wait for it to complete, nor did I copy the text out. But I can tell you what lead to it: My ships had just arrived at a Gremak-controlled star system with both Gremak and Orthrin (who I was friendly with but not allied with) fleets present. I got a notification that the Orthrin fleet was being attacked by the Gremak and I could intervene if I wanted; I proceeded to ignore that notification after a trial-and-error discovery that, if I helped the Orthrin out, that would prevent me from attacking any of the Gremak planets that turn. Instead, I attacked one of the Gremak planets directly, and in the process, eliminated the entire Gremak fleet. This left the original notification orphaned - the game still claimed that the Orthrin were under attack, but there was no Gremak fleet left to attack them; I presume this is what caused the lua error when I hit end-of-turn. On the plus side, the game recovered just fine; as the error box suggested, I was able to hit end of turn again and keep going without problems; -very- nice coding there - I know how hard doing error recovery can be.
3: There should be better communication over the question of who gets to invade when you assist or are assisted by an allied fleet in attacking a planet. As far as I can tell (though I've only had opportunity to test this a few times) the game just quietly defaults to your ally getting first chance to invade. I'm not sure what the right solution here is, given that joint ownership of a planet isn't (and probably shouldn't be) a thing, but at the very least the game should explain whatever decision is made.
4: It would be very nice if systems that are protected by warp inhibitors (both allied and enemy) would have some sort of identifiable icon on the map; it can be hard to keep track of otherwise. In addition, the refit-all-of-type button is -really- dangerous for variant stations with warp inhibitors installed; for example, if you have two variations on fleet bases (one with WIs and one without), and then get a new shield tech you want to install... well, let's just say it can go badly. Perhaps it would be better if Warp Inhibitors were their own orbital platform type ala warp gates, rather than a system that may or may not be installed on regular orbital platforms?
5: I was very disappointed to discover that you can not, in fact, put plasma torpedos into the 'torpedo' weapon slots on Yoral ships. ...Not that doing so is actually a good idea compared to, say, antimatter torpedos. In fact, I don't think I've ever used plasma torpedos - I've always had something better by the time I got that tech. But still.
6: The options to increase ship/tech costs for slower games are interesting, but suffer from some flaws; I cranked this setting up to the max after deciding I didn't want to hear another Stellar Surge Beam, and my observations include:
- In the first few turns, the AI gears up way faster than I can - I saw a Gremak imperial fleet with a light cruiser when I was still in the process of researching my -first- technology; if they had pushed aggressively (thankfully they didn't) there's no way I would have been able to fend them off. I suggest replacing the starting free space station you get with your homeworld with a larger, combat-capable variant (excluding humans, of course, but they've got their free heavy cruiser so that's okay). Yes, you wouldn't have the tech to replicate that base until later on - but presumably by the time you're building at least your second or third colony you can afford some kind of combat fleet.
- Costs on transports vs. armor vs. dedicated troop transports go weird; it's cheaper to build transports & troops separately - until you get the tech that reduces ship construction costs, at which point building dedicated troop transports is faster (but still costs more minerals).
- I'd like an additional option to slow down mid to late game research; I'm actually pretty happy with the normal game's early tech progression, it just gets too fast by late game when you start to have multiple planets dedicated to research. Could we have an option that increases tech costs in some non-linear fashion? I'm not entire sure what would feel right here, though; maybe something like "research costs over 300 scale up to cost*cost/300", maybe something like "research costs = base cost * 1.1^(total number of prerequisite technologies in the tree)", maybe something else entirely.
7: When outfitting ships, components within a category appear to be sorted alphabetically. This is vaguely okay-ish for weapons, where there isn't always a clear 'better' choice, but it's significantly counter-intuitive for shields, armor, and reactors. I suggest substituting a fixed ordering based on tech level, so that more advanced options will always be higher on the list. Perhaps base it off of cost to research the relevant technology, with alphabetical order used as a tiebreaker? That's at least more open to adding new weapons and systems than giving them all pre-calculated index integers, and more general than scaling based on values that vary by type (average damage for weapons, energy output for generators, etc.)
As an aside, this is somewhat helped by the 'hide obsolete techs' option - but sometimes you want obsolete techs, most generally shields (if you're low on power) or reactors (if you've got way too much power and want to save a bit on construction costs).
8: Trade negotiations are frustratingly asymmetric; for example, the AI can call you up and ask you to help them out with food for a few turns, but you can't do the same if you're running a temporary shortfall.
9: It's quite frustrating to make contact with a new race, spend the diplomatic credit to establish an embassy and a trade agreement, and then have them declare war on you literally the next turn. Could we perhaps have some sort of grace period on expenditures where, if the AI declares war, you get a (partial) refund? (Until then, this is one situation where I'm perfectly happy to abuse the undo button.)
10: I should not have to manually control the entire battle in order for a scout ship with a PD laser to destroy an unarmed and unshielded outpost.
11: Keyboard shortcuts are good, and need to be both available and obvious. For example, numbering the options when in a diplomatic negotiation.
12: Speaking of diplomatic negotiations, there are three or four different ways to exit that screen - and one of those ways is dangerously close to the "declare war" button. I haven't mis-clicked on it yet, but please tell me there's at least a confirmation dialog for that option?
13: The Stellar Surge Beam tech vs. Primary Siege tech; you unlock these at the same time, they cost the same amount to research, and there doesn't seem to be much reason to go for Primary Siege ever*, let alone first. I suggest increasing the cost to research Stellar Surge Beam by 1.5x to 2x or making it require Primary Siege, and maybe also increasing its power requirements so that mounting one (or two on a Dread Star) actually requires some tradeoffs in ship design rather than just being the natural use of all siege hardpoints.
*Footnote: There's one exception here; if you're playing the Orthrin, there's some definite value in Primary Siege equipped gunboats.
14: Ship mobility is oddly fixed; I was very surprised to find no in-combat engine technologies. Perhaps an advanced engine type that lets you convert excess power into more speed? (Yes, you can add engines - but those take up system slots that are probably better spent on heavier shielding.)
15: Acquiring an alliance with the Phidi is an exceptional force-multiplier; it seems to be vastly cheaper to hire mercenary ships than it is to build your own, and in some cases they (like the various pirate fleets) come with more advanced technologies than you would otherwise have access to. I'm not sure if this is actually a problem or not, as getting an alliance is expensive, and then you have to have trade agreements with other empires to have access to mercenaries. Still, in several games I've played, that alliance has proven very useful.
