I played the game for a few hours last night. My impressions so far is, for a incomplete beta, its pretty dang good. I really enjoyed the weapon effects and thought they were done well.

I do have a few suggestions though:

1. I also do not like the "jumping through gravity well" mechaninc. I find it cheesy and you spend to much time chasing down fleets running rampant in your space. I understand that you do not want to have fleets blockaded at "entry points" so you are giving them an option to escape, but I think a better way of handling this mechanic would be this.
a. Divide the Gravity well into two rings an "Inner" and a "Outer". The Inner ring would be for construction of modules and defenses. The outer area would represent the fringes of the Gravity well that prohibits Phase Jumping. By doing this you eliminate the "Blockade" but also make enemy fleets transit through a system to head further into an Empires space.
b. Change the Inhibitors function to perhaps slow the drives of ships along the Jump Lanes, or make Phase transitions longer to initiate.

2. Spinal mounts firing at rediculous angles. Don't get me wrong, I love the graphics but seeing a spinal mount look like a radio antenna with beams shooting out at 90 degree angels ruins some of the atmosphere for me. Either incorporate stricter facing rules or change those weapons to large turrets.

Thats all I have for now. Great game so far, I cant wait to see what the other builds bring.

-Frank