hey everyone hope you are all enjoying beta 2 as i am. I am here to give my feedback for beta 2 and release some cool ideas based on past games.

First off i would like to point out that the ai is having trouble with the new updates. it seems like the AI is unable to adapt to the new changes because ive played for about an hour and a half and i havent been attacked yet with any fleets, just enemy scouts flying through my empire not engaging me. I attacked an empire and found that the AI didnt even come up with a fleet for that empire. just a few small frigates unlike my 2 cap ships, 7 cruisers and 15 frigs. So far im liking the new ships and i especially love the new economy upgrade from % taken from your revenue when you have more things to having limits that can be upgraded with cash and reasources. this makes having 20 cap ships almost impossible. the random maurader attacks are cool but seem to come too early in the game when i dont even have a fleet ready and they kinda just walk all over me . Also i think that with the cost of trade stations are too high considering the average load from a trade ship is 80 credits, increasing the size of the revenue might make these stations more attractive, this is also the case with the orbital refineries. I will now begin to add my ideas on future updates that could be implemented.

1.The phase lanes and new ship class ---
There have been conversations on deleting phase lanes to eliminate chokepoints in the game. I think that the phase lanes allow for many stratigic advantages (aka king of the hill) but i have found that most of the time there are more than 1 "hill". i have found that there are only a limited number of phase lanes and a high number of chokepoints. this may not be much of an issue in single player but in multiplayer it will lead to the obvious Stalemate many times, where 2 sides will each have their own chokepoint and will put a very powerful defense in that chokepoint.
There may be an answer however. we have found that eliminating phaselanes will only lead to a big unorganized mess but i have come up with an awesome idea. Have you ever heard of EVE Online? their traveling system is much like phase lane, where you have to use jumpgates to get from one system to another. There are 2 types of ships however that can ignore this, Capital ships, and the TITAN. This all works by giving these types of ships the "jumpdrive" ability. with fuel they are able to jump from the system they are in to a certain distance based on skill.
So where am i going with this?? i dont think we should have capital ships be able to ignore phase lanes but i do suggest a new ship type, the titan. This ship will be a Huge project requiring its own supertech and a huge cost to building it both in time and reasources. This ship will have the ability to jump an entire fleet of ships a certain distance, however, the titan will only be able to jump a certain # of ships based on size (aka 1 titan with 2 cap ships with 5 cruisers and 5 frigs, or 1 titan 15 cruisers and 10 frigs ect.) The titan will also have a very large antimatter reserve and the jump will have a cost in antimatter based on the distance (this will allow for a limited distance but can increase with antimatter research). The titan will also have other cool abilities that cost a heafty size in antimatter, so wasting all the antimatter on 1 long jump would not be advised for it would waste any chance for using a cool ability until the antimatter recharges. And of course the titan will be Uber in weapons, sheilds, and armor.

2. The old days ---
Anyone remember the old days of RTS? well, i remember a game called Total Ahnihilation (rated best RTS of all time) I beleive what gave this game its award for best of the best is that it had a very big fanbase that built their own unit designs and shared them with fellow gamers. Multiplayer games would be intense because each week there would be new units, thus a constant change in stratagy woudl be needed. ordinary rushes and drawn out stratagies would be obsolete with some of the additions. I think that we could do that here and it woudl be easy. Ever palyed Galactic Civilizations 2? (also an ironclad game) In that game you had the ability to create and customize your own ships. you could fit things from weapons to engines, from sheilds to armor and each addition had its cost both in money and size cost. For instance lets say you wanted to have a fast ship, you would put on a few engines, but this woudl leave only limited space for weapons and defence. so really there was no way you could create the "Uber ship" each custom creation had its own use. This could allow for constant change in stratagy and make the game more challenging and fun.

3. too many planets, too little stars
this frustrates me some, the maximum # of stars is 4!! 4!!!!!!!! i know its sins of a "Solar" empire not sins of a "Galactic" empire (though that would make a catchy name for an expansion ) i think that adding more stars and less planets will make the game more realistic instead of having all thes asteroid planets all over the place we coudl have ordinary planets (volcanic, artic, desert, terran, gas, acid, ect) we could still keep the asteroid planets but they would be rare and woudl hold the artifacts. This will also have the stardrive tech more useful and important, it will also actually also change the game where the only chokepoints would be the stars and you cant build anything around stars .

DX10 Graphics --
Though not as important, it is coming to the age of DX10 and with such hype for this game, it shoudl be apart of the in crowd, not the old crowd. Homeworld 2 graphics just dont cut it.

Interstellar Trade --
trade between solar systems... cool more money

Terraforming --
costs alot but can turn that volcanic planet into a tropical paradise with time (cannot be colonized while terraforming

More asteroid reasources --
increase the reasources on asteroids for longer multiplayer games (yes i know mutiplayer isnt out yet but i know these matches are gonna be LONG,,, just as long as you arent a noob )

zoom to fighters --
allow for following and zooming on fighters (Dont tell me it cant be done, i could do it on homeworld 2 and since this is a "homeworld 2 graphics engine" it CAN be done

More fighter capacity on carriers --
ok im running out of ideas here guys must sleep on it for more to come but ya lvl 1 carrier 2 fighter slots = pff, make carriers weaker and have more fighter and bomber capacity

Salvage --
I heard this might come out later on but i want to salvage destroyed ships and structures and see big fleet graveyards!!

DX10 Graphics --
Ohh wait i said that already D

BETTER MUSIC --
at least it isnt as bad as Galactic Civilization 2 music.. ogghhhh

ok im done ranting, hehe i hope you guys like these ideas, especially the titan idea and ill see you all around at beta 3 until then LaTeR.