I really like the extra faction details more than anything. Especially the part about the TEC Rebels being compared to a xenophobic mob. At first it sounded like it was only a division in TEC military command about the best way to win the war (wait it out or go on the attack). Now it seems we maybe getting a bit more background on the actual citizens of the TEC, who don't seem to like all the decades of warfare the Vasari and Advent put them through.

They actually accidentally leaked the description of it and all the other new capitalships in a string file in diplomacy several months ago. Hence why its no surprise for me. At the time I think it was called  a Vera class destroyer but according to Yarlen the early names rarely stay. Its description mentioned it specialized in boarding operations.

I am interested to see how the corvettes factor into combat. Not much has been said about them, so I wonder what role they will fulfill. We know they are more of a harassment and support unit, but that doesn't mean much. 

I also want to see how these new capital ships operate. I am afraid they may become a rush cap because they can take over enemy ships, but we will see. There is a counter to everything. The devs are also polishing it up so these new ships will probably have an inherent weakness. 

Pirates will probably end up not attacking either player and either falling back to neutral status or fall under the control of the first faction to research it. I get that pirates will not be much threat to the Rebel TEC due to their higher offensive style unless they are used in a guerrilla attacks. 

First race I will be playing as: Advent, probably Rebels. Advent have so many fun abilities and hopefully they become more powerful economically. Their planets automatically spread culture though, which could become a real pain. That said, it sounds like all the races will be fun to play as now. 

One thing I am worried about is that there hasn't been any mention of faction specific units accept for the titans. I was hoping that say the TEC Rebels could get an even more offensive LRM variant with say an extra missile pod with research that would change the mesh like structures and starbases do. Even if it was only one such unit per faction it would be a nice way to diversify militarily instead of blanket research upgrades (I.e. 2 starbases per gravity well).

More than likely everyone will pick TEC Rebels or other offensive faction and rush you even faster with the extra cash and pirate ships. The loyalists would be awesome in the eco spot where their early novaliths will be a big deal in providing support to the front lines, but in a 1v1 match usually the more offensive player wins.

Now maybe those friendly territory bonus will be enough to discourage anyone from fighting them in their own territory, but the offensive player will probably get more planets and thus win the war of attrition no matter how many starbases the loyalists can build.

I am going with Vasari Loyalists, for sure. I always liked Vasari the most, but now, if their Titan is really a combination of ID4 mothership and something along the lines of Vorlon Planetkiller from B5, they will be truly beyond epic. 

I imagine that the TEC rebels will get to use the Cutthroat on loan from the pirates, which I've always wanted for some weird reason (maybe just because I couldn't have it).  I am also hoping for some visual differentiation somewhat analagous to the idea that the Pirates have been the "TEC rebels" in past games and most of their ships are based on the TEC but have spikes, which are always cool.

i like the idea of free culture spread from planets because in the current game you have to put down 2 harmony temples to get the culture temple for the extra 10% allegiance at your hw, the bonuses for the other colonies and the boost to resource extraction. 

This means you could go straight to hostility temples and start producing flak to illuminators that benefit from the new military buffs to culture.

They won't ignore culture because of this planet element and I'm sure the culture temple remains and so do the star-base upgrades.

No I'm sure you can still build culture centers. I just think culture is very underpowered and needs to be improved in general, for all factions.

I think one of the slightly older interviews mentioned the advent getting special bonuses from culture and you don't want to let them get too much.  It's possible that Advent factions will get really nice bonuses but for the others it will mainly be to to defend against enemy culture, particularly Advent.

Could be, and I do agree should culture should justify itself on its own merits, while t is appropriate for Advent to get a little more out of it. 

The answers are so close.