I've had alot of fun playing the beta so far, the game is incredibly bug free and runs silky smooth on my modest system.
here is a list of things i feel need to be addressed:

-The camera controls need to be reversed or at least have an option to reverse them. After a couple hours of playing i had adapted to the controls with no issues but when i first started playing it seemed very counter-intuitive and would be likely to turn me off playing the game if it were a demo and i was trying the game out.

-the way the camera is focused on ships or objects needs to be adjusted, for example when i click on an object (when in focus mode with the 'm' key) and zoom in with the scroll wheel it the camera needs to lock on to the object throughout the zooming motion until i click on something else or deselect the unit. i do however like the "zooms to the point where you hold the mouse" concept when im not trying to select a unit, it allows me to zoom quickly to different points without having to select/unselect objects.

-when i highlight a unit with the mouse and that info card pops up it obscures anything under it (im running a screen resolution of 1280*1024), it would be be nice if it were further to the right hand side of the screen as even at that resolution it partially obscures objects behind it.

-i think overall the camera controls need to shift closer to that of the homeworld, in my opinion the homeworld series set the bar as far in the 3d rts space genre and people will always compare SoaSE to it.

-the scale of units compared to planets and resource asteroids needs to be adjusted. Planets don't have to be to scale but they should be a size that still gives me suspension of disbelief. when you throw the orbiting (it would be cool if they actually orbited too) resource asteroids in it feels less like im controlling a fleet of starships and orbitals around a planet and more like im playing a boardgame.

-have orbitals actually orbit around a planet. it would add some interesting strategy to the game as far as timing entry to a planets gravity well i.e. entering the gravity well while the enemy's fleet has orbited to the other side of the planet. for an example of what i mean by having orbiting objects, structures and ships check out the rts game pax imperia eminent domain. its old school (from like 1996) i think rts that is similar to the masters of orion series but in realtime.

like i said at the beginning, the game runs great on my system at full everything, no crashing bugs (though i had to reinstall the stardock software as it kept crashing on me) and game installed fine. i see alot of potential with it and it's only in its first beta, hell this game has better performance than many commercial releases.

Athlon 64 3500+
1GB pc3200
Radeon x850 xt