Well, I played my 1st full beta game today.  I'm a long time sins player (though I've never been active on the SD sins forums) and mostly play vs AI with my pals.  Here are my thoughts.

1st - It was fun.  No show stoppers in the beta.  Plays as well as the original sins games, just a little prettier when I zoom in.  I rarely zoom in a lot, but when I did, everything looked pretty great and better than before. 

My game as a 1v1 on a 22 planet or so map.  I played vs whatever the default ai is (I assume normal).

The game was incredibly simple to win.  I actually just kept microing the pirates to send wave after wave at my enemy... turtled down any choke points, and then teched up.  The enemy didn't even make 1 in force attack on me.  I usually don't play on normal, so perhaps its just easy.  I'll be stepping up the difficulty on my next run. 

I'm really happy the beta has been released in such a playable state.  Feels just like a finished game of sins. 

I was most excited about creating my Titan ship and seeing what it could do.  I ended up teching up fully before trying to build it.  As I see like 4 or so levels of required research, I assume I can't even build a titan until I research all levels... going to try to build one sooner next game if possible and see if the ship can be built... just weaker.  I think that would actually be a good game play mechanic - sort of like slowly building a death star (return of the jedi).  Might be cool to be able to pump out a titan that is not fullly powered and not fully built... or let half built titans have some sort of defensive capabilities.  Maybe you already have stuff like that in game... maybe not.

Anyway, I was impressed by the power of the titans for planet clearing and for assaults.  Easily super strong as they should be for the overall cost. 

re: pirates - I know I can turn off random pirate attacks and avoid having to f around with the timer and HOPE i get my bid in time.  I wish you could come up with something a little more fun than waiting around and hoping I one up my opponent.  It's just an annoying system.  Against AI, its simply a no brainer.  I need to pay whatever is necessary to make sure the pirates go anywhere but to me.  I really have no great ideas to make this better, but I do think it is crap.

Anyway, because it was a just a normal game, I really didn't get to experiment with strategy beyond turtling, etc, so I really learned NOTHING about the new ships at my disposal.  I just got a titan, teched up all my stuff, and inevitably won.

Anyway, I like what I see.  Love if you could make the pirate mechanic a little more fun somehow.  Maybe if I didn't know if I was outbid or not on the funding and neither did the AI.  For instance, a pirate raid is imminent. How about a 2 min timer at that point where you can bribe them.  I don't want to know what everyone else put in.  I just want to know what I put in.  So don't tell me if I've paid enough to ensure they don't attack me. Heck, after the 2 minutes, don't even tell me who the pirates are attacking.  I think not knowing would be fun.  If your bribe wasn't accepted, then it stays there and you can just add to it next time. 

All of that said, I'm excited again about sins after a several month hiatus.  Great work.  Looking forward to the final release and getting all my pals playing with me again!