I wanted to start a thread for folks new to the game with some things the earlier testers learned by trial and error so you can enjoy the game a bit more. Dread Lords and others, please add to this thread as you feel is necessary! 

• You can invade/capture enemy colonies using any warship with just 1 point of an attack. You do not need transports!
• Core Worlds do need transports! The invasion process can take several turns to complete, failure can happen! I have learned that fleeting up 2 or even 4 transports with 1 legion each gets the job done quicker and more reliable. 
• You need to change a citizen into a 'trader' in your planet screen in order to get a license to complete a trade route. 
• Core Worlds are managed by the player, colonies are sources of the 5 sources which feed to the nearest colony. 
• Distance can degrade this feed to your core world.
• Assign a leader to a colony to make it a core world! This is needed to manage worlds in other sectors which will be too far way as colonies. 
• The new tech tree has your ship upgrades 'built' in it! When you research a better tech in most cases your ships will benefit, weapons and defenses will be upgraded at certain points, check the ship designer! 
• Citizens are  the heart of  the game and you promote them to various needs > soldiers (for transports), traders for trade licenses, Scientists to boost research on worlds, Clerics to boost influence. 
• Build your ships using the 'infinite' range item in the ship designer and explore those sectors! This item is current for Alpha but will likely go away later on as life support techs get better fleshed out. 
• Speaking of Sectors, you need two techs for going to other sectors. One tech lets you see them and the following tech lets you move thru them. 
• Once you have both and you found a 'stream' click on a ship with 'infinite range' (you may need to design and build one) next click on the END point of the stream you should be able to move along the stream to the next sector. Do not click on the stream as you will not move anywhere.

That's all I can think of but I know others can add to this thread. 

Great Job Stardock!