Rumbled my way through the tutorial and post-tutorial squishing of the cats. Faintly impressed by what I've seen -- most things are very smooth, automation and whatnot is pleasing, etc., so forth, so on. Definitely feels like there's work still ahead, but what's there is quite well done.
Various thoughts:
-Enemy AI that's fleeing a space battle should probably be running away from enemy forces instead of toward them, ha. Looks like they just head toward the top right-ish of the battle map, but that tends to be directly toward hostile forces and that seems... a little silly.
-Economic plans that just won't work (like scientific on an exhausted planet, ferex) should probably be greyed out or somethin'.
-Realize it's probably for future builds, but I definitely missed "civilian", so to speak, research. Lots of shooty stuff, but very little in the way of improving the lives of my people, heh. Improved research/industry/etc. research would be nice... probably stuff for improving population limits, health (for whenever/if random events get in, resistance to plague or whatev'), stuff like that. High-end research enabling things like transhumanism/roboticization (population starts eating part metal instead of only food, with potential bonuses to research/industry/ground combat), planet construction. I've always preferred the sort of kingdom building aspect (building a small group to great heights, as opposed to empire building by way of conquering everything) to 4x games over the overt steamroll errytin' with dakka part. More stuff like the orbital research/factory things, basically. Terraforming would be wonderful, heh.
Of course, that sort of thing might not be intended for how the game is being planned out, and that's definitely okay. S'just something I personally enjoy seeing.