The number on a research item indicating its level turns yellow when it can't be researched any more.

Dont you all fear it would end up way to easy to jump to the back of someones empiere and wreck havoc? even with the tier research for jump range? And as it is now its not like the gauss turrets are overpowered. And they have a rather short range. On many occasions i have been able to go to the back of a planet and bombard it from behind, out of reach from the turrets. The enemy was forced to respond but couldnt fight me in his gauss umbrella.
Also people make it sound like captial ships will be something rare. As it is now i usualy have about 20 of em at mid-late game, i also hope bigger ships will make it into the game as we move along. Secondly you cant judge the AI as it plays at this point. Im sure i read a dev say that the AI was far from done. Atleast i hope they arent done becouse the AI us sucky atm... its ofc ok since this is beta one, but i hope to see it better in the final relase   

If you included tiered jump range research wouldn't that eliminate some of the "whack a mole" you mentioned? or can make it to where you can get jump inhibitors earlier in game?

On a completely different subject.. Has anyone noticed that when you create a game with 2 stars, and only 1 AI opponent that the AI opponent always spawns in the same star system as yours? I would think it would spawn in the other star system.

Blair has noted that the galaxy generator is set up in the beta to place players in a way that will create conflict early-on (IIRC this will probably be user-configurable later).

They are. I make extensive use of bombers myself--in my current game, the AI sent a large fleet (the largest I've seen the AI send thus far, anyway--probably 8 or so caps and a mass of frigates) to intercept my attack on one of its planets.

As the fleet arrived and started moving towards my end of the well, I just selected all my bombers, queued up attack orders on each of his capital ships, and went on nuking the planet. A few seconds later, all AI capital ships were dead and its frigates were in full retreat.

As it is currently in the game i do feel bombers pack a punch. And they are very good when upgraded. But if you keep some flak frigates near your capital ships then bombars are almost rendered useless in my experince. They get blasted out of the sky in no time.

Thank you Blair for explaining the problems with the fully connected maps.

I really just needed to hear from you that Ironclad understands the problems that we are seeing with the present Beta 1 Phase Lanes. Now that I have a better understanding of what you are trying to achieve, I am sure whatever Phase Space system you finally implement will be fine.

**Here is my last suggestion about Phase Lanes that will actually satisfy EVERYONE:

Simply make it possible for us modders to tweak the game to run with the fully connected maps for our mods. This way, standard single player/multiplayer gamers will be happy with the standard maps AND modders will be happy with the modding potential offered by using fully connected maps.

EVERYBODY IS A WINNER THIS WAY AND SoaSE STILL ENDS UP BEING A BENCHMARK GAME! YAY!

meh frigates are cheap, I want a warning when a capital ship is about to go...

There should be one and there should also be one if an ally loses something important. Must be bugged. Noted.

I have some suggestions; sorry if they were repeated but I don't really have time to keep up with how fast this thread grew:

1) The TEC seem to have no offensive frigate other than the scout frigate and the heavy frigate. The research required between these two frigates is a giant gap, forcing TEC players to spam (build a lot of) scout frigates to bolster one's fleet instead of building a more suitable unit. Capital ships are fortunately within easy access, but their cost prevents them from being utilized until late in the game. Is there a way around spamming scout frigates constantly, or do you, the developers, also have to generate a ridiculous amount of scout frigates? A suggestion that comes to mind is adding a "normal" frigate, something that bridges the firepower gap between the heavy frigate and the scout frigate. The scout frigate should be a specialized unit, like the seige frigate, or the flak frigate, not your main combat unit. I always wanted to send the frigate out scouting, but I knew if I did, my fleet would lose potential firepower. And I find it ridiculous that I must rely on my scout frigates as a basis of firepower. It might be pretty hard to implement a new frigate, balanced and all, but I would really like to phase the scout frigate out of main combat duty.

2) The left-handed system is way too complex. I saw a couple people point it out, but I have a suggestion: split up the tree into two parts, one on either side of the screen. The right side of the screen is dull fully empty, while the other three are filled. Keep combat-related units on the left, and module/structure (aka non-combat) related units to the right. I know you have a little dot system going on, where it's already split, but perhaps now that it is split up into seperate trees, you can use the dots to seperate the combat units further. Or, like somehow said, make each unit more identifiable. It's ridiculously hard to differentiate between a trade ship and a colony frigate, and even though I click the "combat unit dots", I still can't select the frigate I want because its difficult. Either way, you guys need to find a way to make selecting ships easier. Differentiating the icons is one way, but you can also have a list pop up when you click the "military dots" and then select the ships you want. Like, when you hover over the military dots, you see a list, how about keeping that list when you click on it, and then being able to select a unit from it? That would be really helpful.

3) I would like to have a "jump together" option when phase jumping. It's irritating when a scout frigate makes it first, and engages the enemy on the other sdie when your capital ships are still chugging along to the outer rim. Then your scout frigates get ripped up while your capital ships are just arriving. I find myself constantly putting ships near the edge of the gravity well, then jumping them all at once in order to keep formation. Please, include a jump together option somehow. Maybe if units are in an assigned group, they are forced to jump together.

That is all so far.

edit: I think the minimum number of planets in a galaxy is 20; please reduce this to something such as 8 or 10. 20 planets in a 1v1 can take hours. Or somehow set a system that requires at least three planets per player. So the minimum for 1v1 is 6, etc. Spending more than 5 hours for multiplayer is too much for some people such as msyelf.

I just noticed a redundancy in the research tree.. or maybe they do different things.
The long jump research, 'jump to other star systems' right?

The jump drive relic, 'jump to distant star systems' ...

I just don't understand. Maybe a throwback to other travel systems? Perchance anyone could enlighten me to this?

This has probably be answered somewhere but are the pirates going to actually have bases or something?

And will they ever actually attack a player if the bounty is high enough?