So, having played SoaSE since my college roommate got me addicted freshman year and as a ghost member of the forums, I will now provide feedback on my experience with the Rebellion Beta thus far... take it as you will.  If you agree with some of the things I am saying, support would be good.  Curious to see if I'm on the right track in my vision of game balance or if I should just keep my mouth shut.  If you disagree, please explain why if you post.  But anyway...

My Rebellion Experience:

Overall, my experience with Rebellion has been good.  It would be amazing, but I hate playing as the TEC.  I love most, if not all, of the new visual material.  Very nicely done.  I also enjoyed the addition of the moon planetary types as well as the addition of effects to star gravity wells [have only seen Gamma Exposure and Solar Interference so far].  I was also pleased by the new capital ship ability level up system.  I cannot wait to apply the system to my beloved Advent.    I also like the new corvette ships, though I was hoping there would be more of them per race...

Now, on to specifics...

Over the course of one game that I was playing, I noticed that my culture was spreading to a different star.  I am fairly certain this never happened before.  Intended?

Next up, starbase placement.  I have never seen placement like this, is this normal?

Those are the only things that required screenshots, but to continue...

Having played three or four games, I feel like it is WAY too easy to field a titan.  Devoting all my resources to building one, I can have the labs, research, fleet research, and the titan itself in under 20 minutes.  Sure, I sacrifice the expansion of my empire, but given the nature of the titans at present, who cares?  Once I've got that baby on the field, there is no stopping it, especially that early in the game.  Something needs to be done to make the titan more difficult to obtain and/or not nearly as powerful.  I have seen other forum posts discussing the need to alter the research requirements [personally, I am for bumping it up to Tier 2-5 instead of 1-4, which will increase the cost of the research and the time it takes to field a titan, and will further discourage under developing your empire for the sake of a titan, though it would still be a viable option, just not as easy as before], the cost/build time [I think the cost is fine, but increasing the build time couldn't hurt, even with the notifications, how does one stop an opponent from fielding a titan?  You can't, unless you're really really close.  There are just too many phase jumps].  I have also seen discussion on the need to address the seemingly indestructible nature of the titans.  I agree that they currently seem impossible to kill considering the amount of effort required to field one.  I mean, my Lv1 Ankylon can take out the pirate base!

Speaking of pirates, the titans and the time it takes to field one make pirates a joke.  Just a few weeks ago I remember spamming bounty before a raid just to keep the pirates off my back.  Now, I just let them come.  Food for titan.  Omnomnom.    Depending on what changes with the titans, I think the pirates are due for a buff, or at the very least, the pirate base is.  The pirate base should not be that easy to take out.  Pirates are a huge part of strategy, but if I can remove them from play within 30 minutes of starting a game, why even have them in the first place [besides food]?  Pirates received a buff not too long ago that made them a force to be reckoned with after a long period of their effect on the game being minor.  If I recall correctly, that buff included increases in armor and the upgrade feature to make pirates harder to kill and more of a threat later in the game.  Perhaps something new is needed to make the pirates and/or pirate base more of a threat once again.  But, as I said earlier, depending on what changes with the titans, this issue may or may not need to be addressed.

Next, allying with the TEC Rebels makes diplomatic relations incredibly difficult.  But before I elaborate, I have one question.  Does the Insurgency research affect your allies as well?  If not, this issue still needs to be addressed.  Anyway, once the Insurgency research is completed [whether or not this affects your allies] and rebel forces start showing up all over the system, if your ally is a TEC Rebel, they will make no effort to cleanse their world of the insurgent forces nor will they be attacked by said forces.  They just hang out in the gravity well and keep getting more every time a new wave of insurgents comes in.  Not only does this make late game expansion difficult, but those damn rebels that my ally is friends with attack all my envoys which makes pacts almost impossible to maintain.  My issue with this is two-fold.  Was this intended?  I mean, the Loyalists and Rebels are at odds after all, it would only make sense that diplomatic relations between the two factions be almost impossible, but in the matter of actually playing the game it seems rather unbalanced that if you are so unfortunate as to have a TEC Rebel ally that you can make no pacts with them or risk funneling a lot of resources into building starbases at every ally world you wish to maintain an envoy [the solution I came up with during the game].  As for my other issue with this, should the Insurgency technology be rendered completely useless if your opponent is a TEC Rebel?  That doesn't seem very fair/balanced to me.  I don't prefer playing the TEC, but if I am understanding the purpose of Insurgency correctly, then that technology is very important to mid-late game strategy.  Rebel forces showing up at various worlds forces the opponent to spend resources to defend them from future attacks, meaning they will be spending less on military actions, giving one the opportunity to attack.  So, was complete immunity to that technology intended or will it be changed so that Rebels are affected by it?

Did I mention that I hate playing as the TEC.    It really throws off my style after being assimilated into the Unity and having never looked back since that day.  =P  Anyway, before I address some other issues, I was wondering if the community would be graced with a timeline for the release of other races.  Having waited for the release of Rebellion for an entire year, I don't want to be the only person who has to wait even longer to play the race I love.  I've noticed the complete lack of Advent love on the forums, with the exception of players like Darvin.  But yeah...  all will join the Unity in time.  

I just read the forum post that contained screenshots of all the titans and their abilities and I must say that I am disappointed.  I like the Vasari Loyalist, TEC Loyalist, and TEC Rebel titans.  I do not like the Vasari Rebel, Advent Loyalist, and Advent Rebel titans.  However, the more I see the Advent Loyalist titan, the more it grows on me.  I will most likely never play as the Advent Rebels after beta is over, but I still do not like the look of their titan.  I guess I was expecting something that wasn't vertical.  I feel like Advent fleets will look strange now with a bunch of horizontal ships [Radiance, Halcyon, frigates, cruisers, etc] and a giant vertical ship.  But, fleet aesthetics aside, I was more disappointed by the abilities of the titans overall.  Not to say that I was disappointed by them in practice as the TEC, but I was definitely expecting their to be more of a difference between the titans abilities, but now it seems that they all have the same base abilities with a few minor variations.  Are these abilities final?  I personally would like more uniqueness between the abilities of the titans, namely the abilities that are on the bottom of the display since they seem to be the ones that are basically carbon copies among them.  Also, curious side note, what is the Point Defense Damage listed on the Advent titans?  I do not recognize that damage type...

Novaliths.  I hate them.  They seem too easy to produce now given the quantity produced by the AI in a few of the games I've played so far.  But, my issue with them is less about them seeming easy to produce and more with their effect in the new Last Capital Standing victory condition.  Fire off a couple Novaliths to your opponents homeworld and the game is over. Doesn't seem very balanced to me, even though technology exists for the TEC to prevent loss of planet via bombardment.  What about the Vasari and the Advent when we get access to them again?  I don't know about the Vasari, but don't the Advent starbases only prevent loss of planet due to overwhelming culture?  If so, I think the Novaliths effect on this victory condition should be addressed.

And last but not least, a request for new achievements and new fields in the stats shown after a game is completed.  I did not see data concerning the titans when I looked through the game stats.  Though, I may have overlooked them.  Anyway...

As a final note, I have yet to play as the TEC Rebels since I am playing the Loyalists several times more with different difficulties of AI and with some friends to better gauge their playing style before trying out the Rebels.  But yeah, excuse my ridiculously long post.  I like to be thorough, or at least I try to be.

-Cirdan

EDIT1:  Changed post title to reflect content...

EDIT2:  Moved to beta feedback subforum...