I am extremely excited for this! I clocked over 100 hours on the original Star Ruler and I am sure I'll see the same level of quality in the sequel.
A few questions:
1. How is the pace looking? I felt for the original Star Ruler that the pace was too quick for meaningful diplomacy. With the more complex economy I would hope the sequel is a lot slower.
2. On the flip side, what about game length? In the original, game length was often times too long, and could last for hours. While this is fine in a TBS (which is the scale I feel SR is trying to emulate), in an RTS your brain can get fried within a half hour of constant action. How are you attempting to have games "close" quicker?
3. I was wondering if you could explain more on research. I haven't played FFX or PoE so I'm a little lost. Are you still going for "levels" of research, or the more interesting way in which every tech unlocks something unique?
4. In regards to influence, are you going the Galactic Civilizations 2 route? Or a more HoI 3 route? (For reference, HoI3 required you to have "diplomacy points" in order to create diplomatic agreements, which I felt made diplomacy boring. GC2, on the other hand, had you use influence points, which could be traded among players like any other resource, to vote on "rules" that effected all players).
5. Can resources (such as fish, water, and plastics) be traded among players?
6. How random will the game be compared to SR1? It seems from the description you've added much more than pirates and other player empires to contend with.
7. Will ships modify their movements themselves to dodge kinetic shots, will we be required to do it ourselves, or will shots move too fast to make it near impossible to dodge them?
8. Will ships have their own fuel still or will you be adopting a "supply range" like SOTS2 had?
Oh. I got a little carried away. Don't feel obligated to answer all of them.