Well i will post here my P.O.V. (no pron here dudes) about ES 2 EA. 

I did 4 full runs, one with each of the 4 races in normal dificulty and some busted games in between. Actually i am doing a full run with EL + Tempest. Just to compare.

No pro No cons, just ideas, what i think and observed.

Bugs/Anomalies:
In a system with 2 same planets tipe: If one specialization is being built on planet XXX 2 and you want to construct the same specialization on planet XXX 4  the game recognize that you want to destroy the specialization being built and build another same specialization. You have to wait that one is finished to queue the second.

This happened once only: Ark Battles bugged, In battle cinematics, Battle Ui showed as it should, but screen displayed the galaxy UI not the combat.

Improved pinch beam (hyperium) has the same caracteristics as basic pinch beam.

Generic notes: 

Many ingame explanation are too short to be readily understood. It may be self explicative to an experienced player but they aren t enought for a new player. 

This create a interruption in game to seek info, this loss of atention via Alt Tab generate attrition in the player experience, diminish the enjoyability of the game. 

I think some attention should be made on that department.

This is very comon on the Tech tree bonuses. (is it the mere presence of the planet or the colonization of the same)

In all my games food was irrelevent to boost population, population grew too fast. I never implemented any food boost but the "drone network", and no game was long enought to ude the food to dust feature. Also sum that 3rd era is too long to reach and you got food management ignored.

Politic didn t make any diference in gameplay, even liking it. Also there s not enought diference between the kinds of governments, i feel this should be worked if it hasn t already.

There s too much "empty time", i had a lot of time to build fleets as there was a too great a gap between building improvements (building too fast or research to slow or both) and another, this should not happen, many system weren t building anything, and i got each turn the repetitive alert.

Make very clear on the negociation screen of a specific species how much time is left in a truce, war or whatever, right now it ain t practical.

Make repairing hero ship easyer to do in the fleet tab of the galaxy panel.

When you click "apply skill" on a hero that gained some skill, remove the "hero upgrade notification" from the main screen.

Arks looked quite fragile in combat, too easy to blow up, too easy to restore.

I can t say for sure, but i feel Cravers are too easy, even starting with a crappy system and crappy systems around me i win easely (was obvious from turn 75), then come Sophon because you reshearch faster. Harder was voydani.

Pre game UI specific:

When you start a game i would be nice to have a button called "surprise me" or " randomize" that set all the galaxy feature randomized preserving the player to go in each topic and select randon in all tabs.

IMO non repetitive gameplay has great replayability value and the player experience would be increased a bit if we can remove some barriers.

On the same line a button called "continue last game" or whatever name you wish would be very welcome.

Ships "grades" must be better diferenciated in form if possible for quick recin of what is what.

In game UI specific:

The presentation of planets individually in the solar sistem reached by the mouse wheel:

Totally irrelevent and irritating: You zoom in to reach the planetary "alignment" to have info about all planets and you pass right to this planetary presentation that agregate absolutely nothing to the game (no new info), so you have to click the mouse the step back. Yes... it just a click, now repeat this dozen of times during "everyplaytrought" and you ll see how counterproductive it is. Unless you plan something big and specific for it in the main game, remove it.

In my playtroughts i was facing a revolt and there was a -25 satisfaction without any explanation/indicator.  (latter i found that maybe, maybe it would be a result of the politic "dust not rust bill" but i can t be sure)

"In the Trade & ressource" tab we have the "Luxury ressources" box. Its a nice addition, it would be perfect if you added the amount of each ressources you empire produce/total owned. Right now we have to sum what appear in the "systems" tab. I m sorry if there s another place that give that info, i haven t found it. 

Some of your alerts are a bit "over", pure facegrabbers: "Are you sure you want to ditch that avancement" is an example. Full screen, really ?

On the opposite side, an optional warning when your empire turn itself deficitary would be nice, right now the alert is only given when you are going bankrupt, AKA: "Nuclear launch detected" wait! what ? 

Now more specific stuff:

Luxuries, how do they work, you collect them, you trade them, you have sistem improvement. OK. I like the system improvement idea. But i think it could be improved.

The luxuries have nice bonuses for the planets were they are present (if i aint wrong), i find this a parcially flawed sistem. The "system improvement"  is akin like the EL luxury booster, but i think this can be refined.

Here an idea (for what its worth):

Luxury can be exploited and traded as before.

But i would stop letting them giving bonuses where extracted and would not permanently fix in stone which luxury will be give bonus to a system as long as the improvement building is constructed. (IE: not fix in stone the luxuries you allocate in the improvement buildings)

I would evolve on the idea that such luxuries give money when traded, but will only give bonuses when a specific building or maybe a trade line is established to a solar system. 

Those building would be destructible and would use the luxuries per round as long as there are reserves (stock + production X>-1) of the luxuries. (if it fall to negative trade line stop existing, building stop working, no more bonuses, warning issued)

I would go as far as 1 building or trade line per kind luxuries to be used, the cost is the building or trade line establishment only. 

If the trade line is adopted the lines can be inside empire or outside empire. BLockade would stop the flow etc.

I would make luxuries a bit more rare (maybe?)

Pro: it leaves luxuries more dynamic, more usefull, will encourage to try to estabish trade lines (or company subsidiary?) I ignored trade lines in 3 of my 4 games and it made no diference at all), trade companies, diplomacy. Or would leave the development building less stuck on concrete. As they are now, i don t see much use in them. wrong luxury chosen? No more luxury of that kind ? time and ressource wasted.

IMHO as per now, it ain t worth the time and ressource, i imagine this perception will increase in higher dificulty as each investment has many trade off and a wrong choice can be bothering.

Con: Micromanagement ? AI development problems?

As we are in trade subject:

Right now the trade panel is a bit limited. How do i trade a continuous flow of trade (not only 1 transaction) each turn. (if implemented) 

Tech Tree:

Now for the part i dislike the most, and i don t seem to be the only one, at least on steam many people rated ES2 negatively because of the tech tree as it is.

WHy? you ask, WHy copy paste EL? we ask. It just feel horrible and unfitting for a futuristiv game....

IMHO you should try to innovate, not copy. But whatever you do, please do not copy the EL format, it feel SO wrong!!!  

As a general overview: Tech tree are the same static stuff in everygame. Play a couple of time and you know it by heart, reapeat and rince the development plan that has been succefull for each game. (yeah i know it ain t totally like that) This add to the predictiveness of the game and doesn t help replayability. Usually unsurprising games generate "boredoom debts". Those negatively stockpile until it blows all your credits, thats when people stop playing. 

If you could find a way to randomize (as an option) at least parts of the tech tree this would be a real evolution and stepping stone in the genre history.

Yeah i know it ain t easy.

The logical string that ES1 tech has was way more logical for a futuristic game, and thinking by logical strings some strings can be randomized, inverted, why for example planet kind X is easyer to colonize for everybody and in each game than planet kind Z. Why not randomize this a bit.

Why weapon that need ressource X come first in reshearch ? Why not shake the building a bit? 

Why not "string" weapon effect to a ressource ? And randomize the ressource importance randomizing the tech needed to exploit them?

Then throw all in the mixer: randomize which effect is result of which reshearch and which ressource is easyer to come by first.

Why not blind part of the tech tree so when we begin we arent sure takin planets with Titanium and hyperium should be priorized ? And if in this version of the randomized tree, Adamantium come easyer and have the effect i liked more (or not.)

OTOH if ship ressistance could be randomized too, it would be much more interesting.

Let say race X has naturally more resistant builds to Lasers done trought cristal X than titanium bullets. But in the next run its not so. 

Or more simple: on run one, free movement would be earlyer than lay lines, lay lines adding speed to the travels, and wormholes adding speed to the free travel.

On another run it could be exactly as it is today, etc

I know it sound crazy and maybe it could be complex to implement due to AI restriction, but i think its worth a shot, at least to begin the movement.

The idea here is to remove planning and calling a more adaptative approach for each game run as an option. 

It add challenge and the game, more life to the game, IMHO. But maybe i m just crazy.

Still the tech tree but another matter:

There s not enought diferenciation between reshearched stuff and unreshearched stuff. I really hope you drop out the current tech tree format, its horrible, but in case you do not, i would gray out and shrink a bit the reshearched tech to increase dicernment. (EL has the same problem)

I also didnt understand why some tech are on the upper bar, they are easy to forget or overlook there, the concept behind such a choice elude me.

I liked Population and politics.

I don t know what you planned for the full version but i think some improvement could be done.

Just food for toughs:

Politics:

There s not enought diferences between some autocratic government (theocracy/Dictatorship) and democracy/Senate.

For example its hard to think that in a democracy you could throw your pop left right as it please witohut generating hate, which OTOH would be normal on a theocracy dictatorship.

Democracy would have to threw some kind of benefit for the migration to occur.

Democracy/senate could generate less disaproval than the other regimes. 

I wish i could choose the population i could ship in a seed ship to increase other solar system pop and decrease overpopulations, but then this could be used to get rid of voyd and cravers....

It would be interesting that if a population of a foreign race get over present in a sector there could be a revolution.

In some way you should be able to expel certain populations from factions you are at war with.

On overall, politic was nice but had very little impacts in my gameplays. It was more a distraction than anything relevant ingame. Maybe on higger dificulties it becomes relevant...

Population made me think a bit especially with voyd and cravers. If void abduct people for food why cravers can t ? i think its logicall to get food where it is. Would Sophon abduct foreign species in the name of science ? 

Maybe population could influenciate in the number of spaceship you can raise. (add that to the food was uninportant above)

i think it would be interesting that if a pop fall to 0 (zero) on a system, this sistem is considered free (loss of ownership). (yes it happened to me as population revolted averybody wen t away.) Infra structure remaining. 

I used "seed" ships to control pop evolution i feel its a bit cheating. 

Combat:

Combat cinematics are irrelevant. In a game with such an amplitude you watch combat a dozen time, if that much, to see diferents ships then thats it you close it. (After half a dozen run, i only watched it again to see how an ark would look)

Unless there is a real way to influence outcome cinematic (it can be as simple or complicated as being able to change ships positions in the formation and the formation) will be quickly ignored, especially because ships mainly  go on rails.

I don  t feel that a concept in tactics is implemented in any ES. Tactics for me would be Hit and run, frontal assault (Spread line, Spear shape, ect), Ambush (assault from various angles). I would include other stuff like there was in the ES1 (higher armor or HP nearest to the fight, a bit like the ideas in ES1).

General impressions:

I liked the game, i feel a nice improvement over ES1, nothing stunning, but an improvement nonetheless;

The game is way nicer and a bit fluffy, with features of doubtfull relevance: planetary presentation, planet scan, and few other fluffy stuffs.

It still need refining in ideas or execution: politics, population, tech tree concept, cinematic & combat;

Some stuff must be changed: tech tree (repetitive ain t i?) execution;

I still find EL a more complete 4X with quite original ideas, which by the way are being copied in CIV VI.

I wish you could implement some original ideas in ES2 to set it even more apart from the rest.

I forgetiing something...

I can't address every point, but if you're having difficulty with the Vodyani, there's a handful of tips:

• Ensure the first thing you do is add another support upgrade to the Arks, as there's absolutely zero downside to doing so.
• Seek out a minor or major race ASAP and begin leeching them. Doesn't matter if they get annoyed, even the Cravers won't be able to fight you. In the early stages where Dust is scarce, this will earn you population far quicker than the alternative.
• Once you have a second Ark, try to locate a system that has the most usable planets. Arks instantly deploy their population across multiple planets. So a two population Ark in a one-planet system will only have two population. But that same Ark in a three planet system will suddenly have six population.
• If someone is going to attack your system, disconnect the Ark and you can use it to engage entire fleets on its own.

In the current implementation of the game, the Vodyani are the strongest by a country mile. Ironically, the Cravers are the worst due to some components not working as intended.

Strange the cravers where so easy it wasn t even fun. 

I confess that the hardship i had with the voydani is due to an crappy lot of solar systems around my starting point. 

Slaunyeh wrote:

Strange the cravers where so easy it wasn t even fun. 

I confess that the hardship i had with the voydani is due to an crappy lot of solar systems around my starting point. 

That explains it. Luck is a pretty big factor for the Lumeris and Sophon, but luck absolutely dictates whether or not you'll succeed as the Cravers or Vodyani. It might feel like cheating, but you can always just play the Vodyani for the first five turns. If you haven't found a minor race and/or good system to colonize by then, exit that game, and load up a new one.

Like I said, if you can get them going, the Vodyani absolutely walk all over the other three races.

Bah i like challenge.  :)