Howzit guys... been lurking on the forum for quite a while now, but don't usually have time to participate, so I didn't bother... finally felt it was time though... sorry for the long post, but its been a long-time coming Be warned, I really over-use smileys and three dots (...)

I've been pretty much following the development of the game since April 2007...and so far, I love it.

To the devs: I'm a developer, so I know what went to into this game (more or less) technically... it is impressive! The game is exactly what I expected it to be... there are a couple of things on my wishlist (which are below ), but otherwise...you have my support for any expansions, and definitely for SOASE II I can see you actually put everything you had into this...

In any case, I've only played a couple of single player games on easy so far, with the TEC and the Advent...

Technical stuff (Windows XP, Athlon 64 X2 3800+, GeForce 8800GT, 1GB RAM, SATA II):

1) Some glitchy menus. Nothing big or deal-breaking, it just seems to make random pauses as you move from one menu to another.

2) LOTS of harddrive activity in the first 4 minutes of the game...slows it down to a crawl. It gets to the point where I move my mouse, go set up the coffee machine, wait for the coffee, come back and and then see the mouse cursor actually move Otherwise it runs smooth as silk...except for the odd pause when I open up a new panel or dialog for the first time.

3) I don't know if this is a bug and it might just be me that noticed it... but it seems that green stars should have green sky-boxes, red stars red-sky-boxes, etc. At the moment it seems pretty random.

4) When loading a save-game, the empire tree does not display the dots for every ship in your fleet...The reason I noticed is because I use this quite a lot, so its actually slightly annoying. Its easily fixable by just reforming the fleet though.

Gameplay:

1) I know this is done to death in the forums... but please, phase inhibitors - make them do something They simply don't keep the enemy in your system long enough to do anything useful...

2) I don't quite agree with everyone shouting for a campaign... I really don't think it will fit this game (it will cater for the RTS guys, but not the 4X fans). It would be nice if there was some kind of epic story to play through, though... maybe something similar to Star Control II, where you were pretty much free to roam around, but certain things triggered other things, etc.. I love multiplayer, but due to time constraints can usually only do single-player with most games

(I'm assuming people are looking for a traditional, mission-based RTS campaign)

3) I really enjoy the pirates (granted, I've played on easy)... They do get annoying when its you against one other AI player (simply because it becomes mostly a click-fest to win the bid), but in the 4-player games I've played so far, its just made things more interesting.

4) Again... over-done in the forums... but please improve diplomacy a bit I don't see why I have to give credits to an enemy empire that should be begging me for a cease-fire, or destroying civilian buildings of an empire that I haven't come across yet, simply because they're not in my star system... Would be great to be able to give them missions as well.

5) Being an RTS fan, a turtler and a my-toys-are-better-than-your-toys researcher, I love the fact that there are super-weapons. They just seem a bit...well...not-so-super. The Novalith cannon is frankly a bit dissapointing... I feel that it has to be a bit more spectacular than it is. Then again, that's a minor point

Shot-in-the-dark wish-list :

1) I'm a bit...well..a *big* CG fan...was kinda hoping there would be a nice big CG space movie for the introduction, as well as for the victory conditions and some of the bigger events in the game (like the creation of a super-weapon)... Expansion pack? *beg*

Don't get me wrong...I like the intro movie and respect to the artists that did it. Its just a bit...cartoony. To each their own, however

2) Optional higher resolution texture pack. Everything is already pretty. Really pretty...but how can pretty can it go?

3) Multiple super-weapons for each race, each with their own exclusive tech-tree. That makes it more difficult to get them, gives you a bit more tactical control of what they do and gives us researchers a lot of replayability (i.e., taking one research path cancels out another).

4) Mother-ships... I guess this would fall under super-weapons, and I know capital ships are what its about...but what about having one super-huge super-powerful, very-difficult to-get-mother-ship for each race?

In any case...my two cents...more like two thousand Great job on the game and you've got an SD/IC disciple...I'm recommending it to everybody