Hi all,

After logging a fair number of hours in this game (exclusively single player so far), here are some suggestions:

1) There should be a UI option to not be able to click-select trade ships.  I play on max resolution and often manage fleets with the map fairly zoomed out--  hence many times when giving a movement destination (trying to click on a planet for example), I will instead pick up a trade ship that's just leaving or arriving at the planet which ruins my movement command-  sometimes in the heat of battle I don't even notice right away or I have to keep checking after the fact to see that my fleet is in fact executing the command.  Since I never micro trade ships, I'd much prefer not to have them get in the way of my clicking. (If not a global option, then maybe require shift+click or cntrl-click to select them).

2) The late game Rebel ships that randomly (?) appear deep behind my front lines are just NOT FUN in my opinion. Esp. to planets that have 100% or more allegiance.   There doesn't seem to be any way to counter (prevent) this that I can see.  I'm guessing this mechanic was put in to keep games from going too long (?) but in a large SP map I've had games run 6-8 hours.  There should definitely be a game option to turn those rebels off imo.  They just make it annoying.

3) Many have posted about issues with diplomacy.  Here are the biggest annoyances I can see against AI opponents in free-for-all games:  there doesn't seem to be any allowance for the effect of relations between multiple parties.  That is, two friends of the same ally that go to war with each other doesn't (apparently) impact relations with the mutual friend.  This causes a few problems. First, there should be some kind of visibility to relations between factions (similar to Civ maybe) so that I can make an "interesting game decision" about who to try to pursue good relations with based on the state or relations that empire has with others.  Second, there should be a way to demand (or threaten, or bribe) for an ally  to choose a side when war breaks out.  It is very annoying to be in a big battle and have an allied fleet show up (with all the "I'm here to help" and "I've got your back" announcements issuing in game), and then have the fleet just pass right on by without engaging (because presumably the have a cease fire or peace treaty with my opponent).  There should probably be a neutrality position to allow them to remain uninvolved but they should then not allow counter-party fleets (or my fleets) to traverse their star-space without consequence (i.e. violating neutrality).  Finally, the time delay when breaking peace is usually not sufficient.  Although a surprise attack is certainly "realistic"- it's not really fun imo.  Again, borrowing from Civ might make sense here.  Require an ally breaking the peace to vacate all of your star systems before declaring war and then reenter (this would hold true for the player as well).  This would also make it more "fair" when an empire is eliminated and all that is left is allies (who currently immediately break the peace when this occurs).  In general it might make sense to have a state of relations of "peace" but not grant permission to enter star space (maybe an exception for scout craft?)... 

I know it could take some work to get the diplomacy system improved-- but in longer games, these flaws really take their toll.  I've quit several games more than four hours in due to these type of issues-- games that otherwise would still be contested (i.e. fun).  One thing that might help short term would be a game option to force "always war" or even an alliance limit like "a faction  or team can only be at peace with N empires at the same time".  I'd probably use this with N = 1 to avoid the above situation but still allow some level of diplomacy.  Just a thought.

Thanks to the developers for good game with even better potential!

-Onodoro.