Maybe it's just bad luck, but it seems like the ratio between water and food planets is skewed really far towards water, especially when you consider how much more food your empire needs. Out of ~40 planets, I only had 8 that produced food, and 14 or 15 that produced water.
it is more convenient to place mega farms anyway
I feel that mega farms take a bit too much income, as do all imperial buildings. The Core buildings (essentially space stations) also seem to be a bit useless without the ability to make them orbit a planet; nothing really stops someone from simply avoiding that overbeefed defense station. Water is extremely useful en masse, as with 8 (I think) you get Clear Water, which removes all civilian production but converts it directly into budget.
The new planetary system tends to cause me to centralize heavily, and it's like a minigame in itself, though I'm usually very low on cash to start the game.
After playing it a bit, I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. It's essentially a completely different game from the original Star Ruler, and feel like it's more meant for small skirmishes than huge 100,000 ship stomps, though that could be due to the way the trading system only works with adjacent planets. While some features have been made a bit easier (fleet management, for example) others have thrown a few more layers of complexity (diplomacy, which can have effects other than simply negotiating with other races, such as the "Name a Planet" card), and the research tree feels a bit sparse at the moment, along with ship building being a little more intuitive, but a little more limiting.
I like the different methods of FTL travel. Gate seems to be best fitted for me, as it means slow early expansion, but once you're in a system and have a new gate established, you're only a quick jump away from any other system under your control, sort of like the Hivers from Sword of the Stars. I think the Slipstream is sort of a direct upgrade to the FTL drive; though slightly more expensive, you can send colony ships through them without an issue. Haven't tried the Fling drive yet.
I know it's early alpha, and thank you for the opportunity to try it. Definitely looking forward to how this turns out in the future.