So, just in the last couple of days I've been getting this (possible) bug - the UI element offering the at-a-glance fleet indicator around planets disappears randomly. Restarting the game sometimes helps, sometimes not. If I hover my mouse over where it would be, I get the infocard still, which tells me the indicator SHOULD be there but is invisible. Hopefully this screenshot helps. 

LOL I need to learn to read better.

At least by the moment I can not say that the beta adds better graphic upgrades........when I was testing it with the models from my mod, I saw many problems with shadows. Always playing with the hightest detail settings at 1680x1080 and antialising 2x. 

About zoom, The unique things which I saw, it was how a close zoom value from the 1.52 was more far in the beta and I´m not sure that I like it if I can not make a very close zoom

About the original game? my eyes can not see nothing different, perhaps the changes are better with a lower detail at a worse computer.

I played it at my very old Intel Q6600 overclocked to 3ghz with 4gb of ram ddr800 (never used at 100% at windows XP Professional 32bits SP3) mounted at a Asus P5Q SE2 with one newer Gigabyte GTX660 2GB and a normal but not bad sound system with a Creative Soundblaster Fatal1ty. This mounted at a big Antec P182 with a Samsung SSD and 3 normal hardisk more (I do not go to count too much the dvd writer because I do not use it too much).

Would you make difficulty level bonuses editable please? I have to admit that it annoys me playing against AIs that have double income rate even on Hard.

Doesn't change the fact that making the bonuses editable would be awesome power for modders...

I agree, the jump between hard and unfair is way too much...hard doesn't present a challenge at all for the experienced player while unfair easily can force the player into adopting "AI only" strategies...

Either I play against an AI that doesn't stand a chance, or I play against an AI that will be spamming novas in no time...neither really is a good choice....there needs to be something in the middle that realistically mimics the capabilities of a moderately experienced player...not a pro, but not a noob...hard is too noobish while unfair's cheating is too obvious and apparent...

Even the multipliers are not? Sad. 

However I would appreciate if you published an official sheet with all multipliers of difficulty levels. There are a lot of speculations here and there, but nothing seems to be clear. 

Its easy to figure out.  You can determine the amount of cheating by looking at the third charts down (for credits/metal/crystal).  To get a quick picture of how much each AI is cheating:   start a large game with each type of AI, quit after a few seconds or minutes, and look at the 3rd chart for credits "from" planet, etc.  You will see 5 sloping lines.  (Divide Hard/Normal to calculate, etc.)

For the DLC patch, cheats for Hard AIs were increased to 2.25 times bonuses.  So yes, it is in fact double Goafan!  The Hard AI now gets more than double our income, 2.25 times more credits (and metal & crystal) from planet income than you or I.  Unfair gets 3.5 times. 

Prior to the last patch it was 1.7 and 3.0, for Hard and Unfair.  And back in the days of Entrenchment, Hard only got 1.5X's more.

Current cheats:

Normal... none
Hard........2.25
Unfair......3.50
Cruel.......5.00
Vicious....7.00

(Cruel & Vicious also get speed bonuses on research times.)

I agree that the gap between Hard and Unfair is currently too large.  But I also feel that Hard cheats too much, and that Cruel (or Vicious) are just ridiculous.  I would like to see ALL of the cheats lowered to more reasonable amounts.

See some of my very old posts for more discussion of AI cheating.

Yarlen, could we possibly get some sort of response regarding this longtime issue?

Probably sometime next month.

There is another BUG or serious balance issue:

On gas giants those random explosions seem to have effect only on bombers not fighters or any other ship. they are particularly effective against advent bombers since they have lowest health meaning full health squadrons tend to disappear instantly. Haven't noticed any health drop on vasari bombers.

This is one beta that shouldn't have gone on for so long because it's actually a performance boost for people with slow CPUs and could effectively help them during multi-player games.