I had a chance last night to try my first round, overall I think it's going to be great.

One of the big challenges with this game, especially with large map games, is going to be keeping track of everything that's going on. I think some standing orders and more in depth audio alerts will go a long way in allowing the player to keep track of everything.

Standing Orders.
The attack settings (gravity well, local, weapons range) are a great first step, but I think these can be improved on. An option for your ships to withdraw after encoutering XX% hull damage or overwhelming odds or force them to fight to the death would be *very* helpful. Maybe withdraw to nearest friendly system or nearest repair bay?

Also, how about:
Gravity well or mutli-well patrol options.
Having fighters and bombers auto scrambling, but able to sit in the hanger to keep down on ship clutter.


Audio Alerts:

The one thing that I think is my best idea is to have a unique preamble for the ship alerts based on grouping. So if you set a ship group with CTRL+1 and they find an enemy they should say something like, "First Fleet, engaging hostile pirate". That way I know immediately what's going on and don't have to look away from whatever I'm doing.

Some status reports on combat would be very handy too, so I know if my attention is needed or not for a fleet engagement...

"Second Fleet, engaging weak/moderate pirate/tec/etc force"
"Second Fleet, under heavy attack"
"Second Fleet, withdrawing due to heavy damage"
"Mayday Mayday, Second Fleet taking heavy losses! There are too many of them! ArrrGGHHGGHGHlll *static* "

I'd imagine a lot of these audio alert cues are already on the way, but I don't know of any games that have actually used the CTRL + # groupings in their audio alerts before, but I think this a game where it would come in VERY handy.