A lot of times I get a freeze, it was because of the ambient planet sounds file. I forget the exact error it shows but I could push skip instead of it crashing while SHOWERRORS TRUE is set. Maybe they're trying to fix it, as I have seen others report it in all of the trinity games as well.

What? I don't have the beta, but this is definitely a loss.

I like hearing the frantic noises of the last bit of planetary life as it is blasted away by my giant red Vasari laser cannons. I cannot really come up with an adjective to describe the noise, but swooshing is good. But I liked it as an atmosphere thing and see no reason to change it as it was fine before and enjoyable when nothing was going on to just look at your planet and hear the noises.

Please, Stardock, don't bother messing with things like this that may seem minor but if changed for the worse make the game a less absorbing experience. Stick to repairing glitches and bugs and getting the other factions ready for beta.

I must say, this renders planet noises almost completely pointless because I can no longer zoom in on my planet to hear its noise. I actually liked this part and would prefer if Stardock were to change this so that you can hear noises with the zoom limit.

I tested it, yes just zooming on the planet it doesn't play. Putting the cursor next to the planet and zooming closer it plays. As a side note the things zooming around the planet are miniatures of all of the cap ships