I first want to say that I think that ES can become a good game, and as an alpha, I am impressed with it. But I do have some suggestions for changes or fixes to the game:

1. Most importantly, the combat system: There are two majorways that a combat system can be designed and still be good:

A) Tactical -- tactical combat can be fun

B) Quick combat -- this is an alternative if you don't want an emphasis on tactics.

The problem as I see it is that you chose option C, which was non-tactical combat which is far from quick. I don't think there's a problem, per se, with the mechanics of your combat system, but the problem with it is that some of us don't like simply watching a battle for as long as these battles last. I know that purely tactical combat is 'not in the cards', so to speak, so maybe a better way of handling the battle would be in a non-cinematic manner (giving some stats after the combat, for each phase, would be nice). The movie of the combat is just a reminder of how little control we have.

2. UI issues -- first of all, I find that the UI, particularly on the system screens, can be somewhat unresponsive at times. For example, when I first go to the system screen, is the most apparent time when response becomes problematic. It was especially bad while first trying to learn the game, because it kind of made me think I was doing things wrong, when in fact, it was the game that was simply not responding.



Second, on the tech screen, if you click on a technology, and then select another technology further on in the 'tech web', then the game overwrites your first choice with some arbitrary choice of its own as a path to that later tech. It would be better, if there IS already a tech selected in that same web, and a potential path through that selected tech, that it select a path that includes the pre-selected tech.



Third, also on the tech screen, it would be better if you could color code some of the symbols on your technologies in such a way that it is more obvious as to which attributes of a tech are new battle cards, which are ship modules, which are system improvements, and so on. In fact, more color coding would be helpful everywhere in the game. Maybe it's because I'm a bit visually impaired, but I just find that a lot of the symbols start looking too much alike to me.



Anyway, I'm holding off on playing more for now because the combat system -- as it is now, I find it tedious. Non-tactical combat ought to be a lot faster. I'll check the game out again with your next release.