Pretty straight forward.  After 60 hours of play in the EA release, I wanted to get some thoughts down on some of the things I'd like to see as the game progresses.  For the record, so far, I've played as all the factions except for the Cravers.  So far I really like what I'm seeing.  The gameplay is outstanding.  Very deep, simple to pick up, yet complex enough to keep you learning and experimenting with different play styles and tactics.  

Faction Variation/Diversity from a gameplay aspect and hopes for Custom Factions:

     I love the variations between factions.  Such as the very straight forward colonization of most species vs the Ark method of the Vodyani.  I would like to see more unique play styles associated between varying species as well.  It's one of the things I love about certain strategy games such as Sins of a Solar Empire and Star Craft where playing a different faction represents a very different style of play.  And it's something I very rarely see in a turn based strategy game.  If the Vodyani are anything to go by,  this game has the potential to add that very element missing from almost every turn based strategy game I've seen.  (I've only ever seen one turn based strategy game come close and that was the original Sword of the Stars, but it still missed the mark in several key areas.)  And I can't tell you simply just how excited this prospect makes me at the thought that this game could very well accomplish this rare feat in a turn based strategy game.  I would very much like to see more unique traits/technologies/gameplay styles that further differentiate species and I would also like to see this in custom faction creations.  Where when you create a faction, you can choose a unique trait/technology or 2 that would even give the custom factions a unique feel from a gameplay aspect.  Also from the custom factions point of view, such as when your picking the look of your ships, I don't think you should be shoe horned into using Arks simply because you chose the Vodyani ship appearance.  At the same time, I don't think you should be shoe horned into using the traditional colonisation method simply because you chose the appearance of one of the other ship designs.  This would be an example of a unique trait/technology I was referring to earlier for custom factions (which I know custom factions will be implemented later).  Where you not only choose your factions standard traits/techs, but then choose a unique trait/tech or 2.  Adding a lot of freedom and variation when creating new custom factions.  I know for this Ark example you would have to create special Ark ship designs for each of the other factions ship styles to make this possible with custom factions, but I do think it would be worth it in the end.

Concerns regarding Arks:

     I do have a couple concerns when it comes to the Arks style of colonisation.  Early game it can be advantageous because they can colonise all "habitable" planets with just one Ark.  Boosting their economy rather quickly compared to some races.  However, because there's no cap on the ever increasing faith required to build each successive Ark and there's no way (currently) to reduce the required faith to build successive Arks via technology, Arks become very expensive later game to the point where I think it would become very hampering to any proposed empire expansion.  Especially on future huge maps.  Even on the current map size I reached a point a futility where it was costing me well over 10,000 faith to build one Ark (and still increasing) when other factions could still build colonisation ships cheaply, easily and very, very quickly (especially if they just buy out the construction) and could thus colonise to their hearts content (or rather, their empires content).  And then there's the population issue with the Arks, preventing you from populating any more than 3 bars on any one planet unless you use colony expansion tech that costs tons of luxury resources.  Sure the Arks can colonise every planet in a system instantly, but they are still subject to current tech level habitable planets.  And this cap of 3 population per planet (although admittedly this does help them avoid overpopulation unhappiness, but doesn't help towards over colonisation happiness) also really hampers the Vodyani from gaining victory, because the victory conditions just now is not only to colonisation, but also population.  The 3 pop cap, really hurts the vodyani in this regard, meaning they have to colonize a lot more planets than most species to hit the population requirement for the victory condition, but are just as subject to the over colonization morale issue as any other race and they have the issue of the uncapped ever much more expensive prospect of having to build even more Arks to achieve this.  So the Arks have 2 advantages.  They can instantly colonise every "habitable" planet in a system, and they can move from one system to another (although I don't know if they keep the infrastructure techs when moving from one system to another).  But they are still just as subject to overcolonisation unhappiness as everyone else and restricted to habitable planets as everyone else is.  Have a disadvantage of being population capped on every planet bar certain very expensive upgrades.  And as the game progresses, becomes harder and harder to get them to effectively expand to the point where it could become a futile endeavor due to the shear amount of faith required.  Meaning the Vodyani are subject to far more hurtful disadvantages over the long run than they gain in the short term.  And because of the population caps, doesn't even help them towards the victory conditions.  In fact, it hurts them even more in that regard.  The most they get from this is a good economic boost.  I know this is still Early Access and there's still a lot of game balancing to be done, but I just wanted to get my concerns about this issue written down.  I love the concept, but it needs balancing.

Ship Module Variation:

     I would like to see more variation in the weapon/defensive/support modules/stats in the game.  Such as I found it very odd for (after researching both) that adamantium and anti-matter weapons and other modules shared the exact same characteristics across the board.  I would like to see more varied characteristics between module types and maybe a few unique properties inherent to resources used.  Such as adamantium should make for great projectile based weapons and excellent armor, but crap energy weapons and shields.  Where anti-matter should be great for torpedoes, energy weapons and for powering shields, but crap for projectiles and armor.  Maybe if you have both researched you could make some hybrid modules, such as awesome torpedoes that have adamantium armor piercing housings with anti-matter explosive based warheads.  This is just an example of what could be a cool feature.  You already have the techs in the tree.  All you're missing are the variations in effects to further diversify the techs properties and how they should affect ship design and combat.  But the current blanket stats give no real advantage/incentive to research both or even one over the other, other than your current stockpile of a said resource and it feels very, very generic.  Their missing that little extra something special feel.

Pre-Battle Setup:

     One thing I would like to see in space battles is the ability to choose which ships end up in which flotilla.  Currently the game automatically splits large fleets into flotillas and you only get to select the one battle tactic for the fight.  As a result, a lot of times ships end up in automatically assigned flotillas and positions that don't always make sense.  In the future, I would like to see the ability added where I could move ships into the flotillas I want them in.  This way I could have more varied ship designs purposed for specific roles and then place them in flotillas more suited to their role.  I would also like to be able to set tactics for each flotilla rather than the current one all encompassing tactic for the whole battle for all flotillas.  So I could have one flotilla set for long range bombardment while having another flotilla set to get in close, tank damage while dealing dealing light to moderate damage.  As the battle system currently stands, I have to omnibuild all my ships to account for every battle.  I would like to see more freedom and more varied battle tactics in space battles.  The game almost seems like it's headed in this direction already, such as with the Vodyani medium ships that you can't fit short range weapons on them, meaning they can't fight at all at close range.  But I thought I should bring this point up in either case, because I would very much like to see the space battle configuration options expanded.

Buildable Orbital System Defenses

I'd love to see in the future, the ability to build system planetary orbital defenses/platforms etc. such as Battlestations/Missile Platforms/Fighter Hangers etc. that would have to be destroyed in space combat before planetary invasions could be initiated.  They would need to be powerful, limited to one of each type per system.  But they would also need to be expensive to build and expensive enough maintenance wise to make them impractical to build on anything but the systems that make the most sense to players.  Such as a highly contested border, natural choke points, or a system that has a high resource importantance (whether that's high dust, research, production, strategic resources, or your primary shipyards etc.), or even your homeworld.  That way no one could afford to put these types of defenses in every system (otherwise wars could start to become tedious rather than fun), but would add more strategic depth to wars and give us more defensive options at our disposal to build for those more strategically important systems while at the same time forcing us to be careful not to build such expensive defenses on planets not worth the required resource expenditure.  Would love to be able to custom fit these stations like you already can currently with your ships, Arks and Heroes as well.

Empire Morale and Rebellions:

     The last thing I will talk about is morale.  In the games current state, the thing that scares me the most is not the other factions, but rebellions.  It's not that there's the occasional rebellion on a single planet or system.  It's that when there is a rebellion, it's as if every single system rebels at once.  I have finally learned how to manage my empire to keep morale under control somewhat (to prevent a rebellion from occurring, not how to stop one in progress).  My issue is not with how to get morale up nor how to manage when things go wrong.  It's with the shear amount of havoc caused.  What I mean is (and I know I'm not conveying this correctly), but I have had several instances where my empire seems fine, I'm making hundreds, if not thousands of credits per turn, then all of a sudden, I go from high positive income to massive losses of credits.  And then a few turns later, I'm completely bankrupt.  Buildings/infrastructure is being destroyed/sold left and right to keep the empire afloat and I am crippled.  And what caused this catastrophe?  Rebellion.  Guess how long it took me to figure this out?  A long time.  Because there was no warning saying "Hey, these guys are ticked and may rebel".  There was no message saying hey your empire is in revolt.  Just one second, rich happy go lucky empire, then bankrupt and losing more every turn.  And it wasn't like one system rebelled, then another, then another and so on.  It was one second everything seemed fine, then everything was turned on it's head.  That quickly.  The long and short?  I would like to see better interaction between the game and the user regarding empire morale.  And I would like to see a more manageable means of not only rebellion occurrences, but also managing their progression and recovering from them.  You shouldn't have every system rebel all at the same time.  Crippling you within a couple turns.  It should be challenging, but it should also be manageable.

I wanted this to be helpful.  I tried to restrict myself to more prominent experiences I've had with my 60 hours of play and avoid things that were obviously simple balance related.  The only exception I made to not talking about balance related issues was regarding the Vodyani Arks, because it was more than just a simple balance issue.  But I avoided talking about, how many guns per ship, shields vs armor, effectiveness, AI ship loadouts etc. because these are simple balance issues and there's a long way to go and many changes coming to the game to where I feel it's a bit irrelevant to discuss them at this point.  And I didn't think it would be helpful to talk about things that were obviously bugs either,  there's other threads/forums for that.  I instead wanted to focus on my experiences and the more apparent things I noticed while playing.  I really love what I see so far and can't wait to see what's coming.  And hopefully some of the thoughts I've posted here will be of help.  I think this game is on the right track to be one of those rare amazing strategy games.  Keep up the great work Devs.

Romeo wrote:

My pleasure. Don't forget to improve your Ark's layout in the Shipbuilder too. Once you have an Ark built, even if you're waiting on techs/Eras to get to a different system, it's almost always worthwhile to have it docked and improving, so when you do move to the other system, it's already prepared.

I think Orbital Defenses are a pretty desired topic around here. Myself, I like to turtle chokepoints on the map, so better defensive options is right up there for my wants.

Lol yup, already do.  It's actually one of the very first things I do now when playing as the vodyani.  I just wish you could make multiple blueprints for Arks (like you can currently with ships) so you could tailor fit your Arks to best be able to take advantage of the systems strengths you intend to have a specific Ark orbiting.  Currently you can only modify the one existing Ark blueprint and upgrade any existing Arks to the latest version.  As a result, currently, if you were to tailor fit each of your Arks for the system you intend to use them in, you would have to re-modify the Ark blueprint every time before building the Ark.

I'm glad I'm not the only one hoping to see better diversification in ship modules and the addition of system orbital defenses.  Here's hoping this thread gets more votes so it could have a chance at the Dev's having a look at some of our thoughts.  Thanks again for your input.