LOTS of beta 2 suggestions

First of all, the game has great potential, but it needs a lot of work to do.

First the interface. This is EXTREAMELY important for this game of this scale. Most of the time I feel lost because of the interface. I can effectively govern the empire even with the few planet and fields.

Here are my suggestions:

1) Zooming in should be to the point where the mouse pointer is located. This way, by zooming out and then in you can move very efficiently across the map. I know this due to Supreme Commander.
2) Make scrolling by press/hold and then move the mouse similar as it is done in MS word, or in games like Command & Conquer 3 (only in C&C3, it is right mouse button, not the middle one). It is important to make the speed of scrolling proportional to the mouse displacement, not the scroll itself, again check how MS word is working.
3) Make ships brighter. Make them using illumination to light up themselves. Like most of the skyscrapers in the night sky in modern cities are very noticeable over the dark night sky, because of all the lightning show they put on them.
4) Make the sky slightly darker. Too bright sky is bad for noticing ships and ship icons.
5) All ship and building icon should have black (or white) outline. When you select them, the outline can change from black to white (or from white to black). Right now visibility of the icon is horrible. It is difficult to recognize and see them.
6) The icons for all ships need to be more unique. The colonization ship icon is very good – the ship look very unique, but try finding a scout in the icons in the empire management (left of the screen). Do not afraid to put small symbols into the ship icons to help us to distinguish them. Put small black triangle into the scout ship icon and suddenly it is very unique and easy recognizable.
7) The bombers should look very different from fighters, and the number of bomber/fighter s in the icon should correspond to the number of ships that actually are in the squad at the moment.
8) Make all icon larger, (say 30%) that especially true for the management line on the left of the screen
9) When you select a ship, or group of ships, or a planet, the planet in the list on the left should be centered and expanded, if it was not expanded before. When you deselect everything, the planet should return to the previous state (collapsed or not)
10) In addition to the above item, I still miss a separate selection window. You can use the same window and the same format of data that appears on the right of the screen, when you hover mouse over the icons of the fleet in the empire management strip (left of the screen). It could work like this. You select some units – you see them in the right window. If you hover the mouse over the things that usually use that window, then the window will change to reflect that as it is right now. But when you stop hovering the mouse pointer over that fleet thing, then the window changes back to the selection. Also, you should be able to click on the line in that window to sub-select ships of that line.
11) Alternative to the above, the selection can be shown as a separate line in the empire management. But the similar ships need to be always collected under the same icon with the number of ships shown, independent of the other settings. This way you can quickly select the identical ships of your current selection. At the same time you can still do whatever you do right now under the planet in the empire management part
12) One of the items of the empire management screen should contain ALL ships, but again in collapsed fashion, i.e. all similar ships are under single icon. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT! I can’t say how often I needed to find that scout or that colonization ship, but I do not remember which system it is in, or if it survived at all. By having access to all ships under the same fleet, you can quickly find any ship.
That’s it for interface. To recap, 3 most important items are icon and ship visibility, ability to find any ships without clicking the planets one by one, and selection mechanics, including separate selection window.

As for the gameplay, I do not have a lot to say because it is difficult to judge the game dynamics with current interface, but here are few suggestions:

1) Fighters should not try to attack anyone but other fighters and bombers when the capital ships are under attack by those bombers. Only after that fighters should protect their own bombers from the enemy fighters and only after that attack the larger ships.
2) The bombers should be more deadly, but easier countered with fighters and some other specific anti-bomber ships. The idea is to create rock/scissors/paper system with capital ships/bomber/anti-bomber ships. Right now it is not that obvious that we have this system.
3) Pirates should have multiple level of difficulty, not just on and off
4) As it is right now, the longer you play, the more powerful pirates become, until I can’t fight them anymore and at the same time trying to something else.
5) I had problems reinforcing the fighter/bomber squads. Basically I expect once a new bomber/fighter is built, it should fly to its squad immediately. I have seen many times that I have to dock and release the squad during the fight to get the new bombers/fighters. Is it a bug?
6) I could not find the way to fly from one star system to another. Tutorials should explain how to do it. And BTW, how to explore other star systems?

That’s it for now. Again, good beginning!
Comments please?