*Update from Preview > Release version

Tech Progression

So far, I like the direction which tech progression is heading to. A blending of a classic tech tree and Era system, this allow the player to pursue their desired play style without much need of researching unwanted techs to advance to next era.

UI Design

I appreciate the developer efforts to improve the design to make it more efficient for players to access and analyze given information. So I would like to provide feedbacks regarding current UI design in U2 preview.

Tech Trees

• Technology's little icons are not providing enough information to the player and are hard to recognize what improvement/bonus it actually is.
  • This made the player have to spend additional effort to hover a cursor over to see what exactly upgrade they will receive. Especially on those [Improved XXXX-class hulls] which give me no information regarding which hull it is.
  • In ES1, The bonuses are displayed as an image with colored 'tag' on the corner, telling the player which type of bonus it provided. My suggestion is, can the unlocked bonus/improvement be represented like what was in ES1?
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  • Also, I'm not sure if there will be faction-specific tech like what was in ES1 (Aside from ship techs). I think instead of displaying faction icon beside the tech icon, making the icon having a distinctive color may be easier for the player to read and recognize them than a tiny faction icon.
• An in-game explanation on red/yellow link between two techs is appreciated. [Added in Released version, Praise be to the Eternal Queen]
  • This may be resolved when U2 is released on the main branch. But currently the tech with a golden link, I can go for the latter tech without a need to research the previous tech. (I assumed that the golden link implies prerequisite tech)

 Misc / Quality of life feedback

• There is no explanation that only developed settlement can export its populations.
  • On side-note: Since we can depart the population now, can we depart 'Uncooperative' citizens and have their colony ship 'accidentally' explode mid-flight
• Displaying luxury resources & empire manpower on the main screen could help player determining their plan. It could be a small icon to 'Extend' the resource windows though.
  • Also, Including luxury incomes per turn to system development screen will surely help the player determine which resource to be used.
• I can hardly recognize some sub-menus' existence(Invasion force upgrades, Battle Card Customization, System Developments). They could have an auto-notification to the player when completing related technology research.
• Would be great if we can disable auto-zooming in every first-time we select systems. This freeze up my old laptop every time I wanted to just send a survey probe on planets.
• [Will surely be patched on release] Because Horatio being too fabulous, I can hardly read their faction description on faction selection screen.
  • Sophon's diplomacy reactions also very hard to read. In fact, the blurry background donesn't go well with thin & 'gloomy' colored text.

Each update never ceased to hype me up, keep up the good work guys