Played from the beginning, love the work put into making this game, so onwards we go:
Performance is good. From small maps to large maps the game plays nice, though latter 2 still take a bit time between turns starting from mid game.
The current build started with couple crashes to startup- not sure why, after that it was very smooth. I have autosave feature turned on to save every 1 turn, maybe that was causing issues.
Played on Immense map- love the huge part. In no time got 100+ planets.
The contrast is a bit off. Like to play in grid influence area, but strategic resources and relics are very hard to see, relic icons are dimmed. The grid is so bright, its brighter than everything else beneath it. Is approval relic supposed to be green? 
(was yellow)
No longer crashing from survey ships, that was a nasty bug. Now you can send 20 of these guys to reack the rewards. They even don't pursuit the same relic anymore- kudos for that!
Loved the old tech tree, getting used to the new one. Tech specialization needs re-balance- if you have a large empire, you are interested in mostly +1 benefits, you dont care much of reduced quantity, maintenance etc for individual planets, you look at the big picture and you always go for the best option every time.
Then there are still some issues I came across:
* If you start to have 100+ planets there are no filters. I would like to checkmark so it only shows the planets Im working on, hide the ones Im "finished" currently. Slider gets small really fast.
* If you have lots of money there should be a button "buy all" or "rush current turn". Clicking manually all doom of stack takes a long time. Rush-rush-rush... One solution would be to do it from govern screen, where you have all colonies in one nice list, though again filters. Also when you click on Rush, it takes you to that planet location.
* Shipyards do not update current ship design which is set on repeat. Like 100 turns after I get a notification your Constructor M2 is done, when Im already in M25 era.
*In addition if i send a constructor to one spot I do not want that constructor to go to a starbase upon request. Sometimes I see, this resource is still open- my constructor has been taken by some starbase. You do loose bearings where is what after some time, remembering what you did 20 turns ago- agonizing!
*On end turn there is a possibility of freeze when you have multiple battles at once- does not happen always but it happens quite often. On end turn the second battle freezes.
*Same goes with invading planets- random crashes not often but they do happen.
*Syipyard manual shutdown is still a bit harsh. Why there is not an ON/OFF button on UI? Going into the syipyard itself is ok when you have 20 shipyards, but once you reach 60+, time consuming.
*There is no more map stuttering but after mid game ships stutter, that is they don't fly smoothly but frame by frame.
*Would love a marker- like a pen where i write down on map what where i focusing there, sometimes i track a specific planet, but then i have some pirate fights and i forget what planet or what sector i was in(on large maps)
*You can not see how much Ideology points you get each turn, when you start to build many centers, they give 1 point every 10 turns, so it would be handy to know how much what you get each turn.
*Besides the diplomacy trade screen there is no means to check your empire effects. Like total influence, total research etc, some of those features are on different screens, some are non existent. Graphs are nice, but what about raw numbers? How many chickens and eggs you have.
*The sound is playing nice but in some moments it shuts down, then it comes back on.
*When you minimize the game the icon is nowhere to be seen on windows taskbar(win 8.1)
*The minimap performs better- way better but the scaling is a bit off. It doesn't center properly, sometimes it shows your empire from edge and until scouts explore new areas, then it shifts.
*This is not a problem though, when you enter from planet screen to planet screen- the music resets. Its ok if you have lots to do, but if you want to fast check them, the music becomes a remix fast. Maybe the music on planetscreen could continue from where it stopped not reset over and over.
*Not sure if a bug but when you upgrade your ships they all loose previous tasks. Scouts stop scouting, fleets stop going where they should be going etc. Its ok on small maps but in Immense, where you have hundreds of ships, most of the time you wonder what this ship was supposed to do- you have to reengage all the tasks each time you upgrade your ships. It can take 5+ min.
*Adding to above when you upgrade your ships your fleets disband. Cant they upgrade as a fleet? Its a pain to reengage tasks but to re-fleet them- its time consuming.
*Not sure if a bug, but when you unlock Large constructor, shouldn't the normal constructor be replaced? The large constructor has way more construction points, its better in all aspects, it should be an easy swap.
*Typos should be fixed on improvements, some buildings have different purpose now.
*Not sure if a bug, but when you have lots of things going on a turn, on exit turn for example the game opens lots of things at a time like colonization popup- anomaly screen- combat. Its like 3 screens overlapping- they should go in sequence.
*A bit annoying is when you send a ship and the end waypoint is fixed- you cant change your direction on fly. for example: When you have your fleet searching for pirates, you select a line, when it reaches middle pirates pop up but you cant change your flight path, you have to wait until the fleet makes the long way end and on next turn go back.
*Sometimes on stars when you zoom out the bitmaps are regenerating itself(square), must be a HDR issue.
Despite the bugs and balancing/polishing the game is very enjoyable, you can have a blast with it. Its fun, sometimes addictive. Only concern would be the great micromanagement on large maps- i like to do them but they get tedious and time consuming, would love some managers to whole the load off from player. Keep up the good work!
