General

• White / empty dots on system when zoomed out : mouse over should give planet type
• Clicking on uninhabited system zooms in, but clicking does not zoom out is annoying
• Going into a system, spaceships turn around again to enter / leave, this animation is awkward
• Enemies shouldn't be able to invade / pass through guarded systems
• Buyout / Repair / Upgrade dust costs are far too high
• Manpower starting empty seems to unnecessarily slow down early game
• Influence Generation seems to be too limited - There are no flat influence production buildings, just % ones. The only way I can get influence seem to be through heroes
• I miss unique techs from ES - I know we have quest techs but its not quite the same. Even EL had trait techs
• Hero skilltrees feel lackluster - both number and quality of skills.
• Trade Routes are fun, but they should be able to go across different constellations.
• Tying diplomacy to techs has always been tiresome in the endless series. Why can't we do some or all of these actions by default?

Luxury Resources

• This feels like the worst instance of luxury resources in the endless series.
• They provide no bonus when gotten, or if you already upgraded everything.
• Bonuses are pretty boring (FIDSI only, both ES and EL had cool other options)
• Choosing only 1 upgrade plan does not create meaningful choice, but reduces it. You end up just choosing whatever resource you have the most of, unless its particularly useless.
• Ex : Both food and science resource in your empire. It would be nice to use food on large system that need population growth, and science on other systems. Since we can only choose one, will probably just take whatever is more common, or science since it is useful everywhere.

Battles

• All hulls between races seem identical, which is quite boring.
• Limiting weapon slots based on ship class makes combat unnecessarily simple, especially in early game when no missiles are available.
• Strategic weapon / defense modules seem to be just copies of the next era's equipement, with the current eras industry cost and a few strategic resources. Again, this is boring.
• Combat is unclear - according to the battle camera, we still have the 3 phases (far / medium / close). According to the fleet screen, maybe this depends on fleet stance? Do engines help close range ships get into combat faster? How does energy / kinetic armor mitigation work? Etc
• Fleet stances could be a good system, but hard to tell in EA.

Population

• Starting with a minor faction pop feels very wrong.
• There seems to be very low benefit from species diversity: one era 2 building which gives more happiness, and slightly more efficient FIDS at the cost of absolute political chaos
• How a species is chosen for new colonies / new pop growth feels arbitrary and frustrating. I often get a pop that is not useful on that planet, when my empire includes ones that could.
• I feel I have no way to manage movement / population. They just grow on their own. (One religious policy is available, but its not enough).

Senate

• Election results seem to have nothing in common with ideological support prior to elections.
• Election actions don't seem to influence results. If they do, how much needs to be made clearer, rather than just 'minor' to 'a lot'
• It is hard to know how much different actions influence ideologies. Is building a ship equal to building a trading company?
• Ideology seems to be overly influenced by events outside my control (someone declares war on me, random event, uncontrollable pop growth), rather than by things I can control
• Overall, very frustrating and not fun in its current implementation

Happiness

• Bonuses and penalties seem too extreme, especially since they are sudden jumps.
• Era 2 happiness building seems worthless - double the cost for 1/4 to 1/2 the benefit of era 1.
• Overpopulation penalty is frustrating - I can't intentionally stop growth, or cause emigration to less full colonies.
• There seems to be limited ways of dealing with unhappiness around era 2 : you start to get overpopulation / overexpansion penalties, but the era 2 building is worthless. The only options seem to be certain laws.

Proposals

Influence 

• Add an era 1 or 2 building that gives a small amount of flat influence.

Luxury  

• Allow plans to be customized when being built. 
• Re-examine bonuses given by luxury resources. Examples include ways to influence invasions, combat, heroes, or senate. This wouldn't be necessary if the next suggestion is used.
• Give luxury resources another way to be used - perhaps they could be applied to trade routes, hero equipment, stockpiles (as in EL), turned in for passive bonuses (as in ES), affect the senate, etc.

Battles    

• Make mechanics clearer. 
• Make different weapon and armor types (especially strategic ones) give traits as in EL (we already have this in small degree with armor / shield damage mitigation). 
• If needed, more complexity could be added through accuracy / dodge / miss. 
• Unique modules (similar to unique equipment from quests in EL) would be really cool.

Population 

• Add benefits to having multiple species, whether as buildings, laws, or as a base part of some government types. 
• Give ways to control species integration : Egalitarian, 2nd class citizens, slavery, or genocide. 
• Give ways to control or at least influence what type of species will start a colony or grow next. 
• A way to move population between systems would be a nice feature too, possibly at a happiness hit / only at certain government types / only if species has unequal rights.

Senate   

• Add detailed statistics of how actions influence ideology (eg pops provide +10, building a ship or improvement provides +5). Hid this behind a toggle if you want. 
• Allow us to influence ideology production on an empire or system wide level. (eg can apply a system wide edict for influence cost that increases / decreases / shifts ideology point gained)

Happiness  

• Rework the era 2 building to be useful. 
• Change happiness system so era 1 and era 2 buildings aren't as mandatory, possibly by providing alternate ways of getting approval.
•  Make the system provide bonuses / penalties for any amount away from 50%, rather than just large jumps at fixed points (piece-wise linear would be fine).

Overall, a lot of the happiness / population / senate problems are linked. The senate wouldn't be such a mess if I could influence my species' growth. If I could control senate elections or influence ideology gain, the inability to control species wouldn't be as much of a problem. If I could count on a particular ideology, alternative strategies to gain happiness would exist and the approval issues around era 2 wouldn't be as bad.