I've played the game for about six hours or so yesterday. Version 0.862 - 0.863
Coming into the game I went with the recommended quick start and made my way through the tutorials as they popped up as I progressed further into the game. Some of the images didn't load and would only be a small red x box or something similar, I was able to understand the game well enough to continue though.
The gating of information and access to new info-graphics seemed ok, I hope subsequent play-throughs will let you jump in immediately.
I had my first death within the first three missions after my initial escape, sitting in the middle of a swarm of enemies at low speeds for too long. I learned to stay abit further away and move around more and felt it was a legitimate learning experience that I could die that early in such a manner. I also noticed my shields recharged after abit if I wasn't under fire.
I found the combat controls a little fiddly after using an ability I would sometimes have a hard time finding a way to see what weapon I had selected given that you move first and sometimes I'd click too fast. Left versus Right click after trying to confirm autofire would sometimes reset my movement if I clicked inside the movement circle as well. I got used to it but wasn't as intuitive as I thought it was at first.
Smuggling space-faring technology was surprisingly and not surprisingly the easiest way to make credits and there were times I had trouble finding things to raise credits quickly for more expensive things.
At times I felt I had nothing to do as I couldn't afford the high priced federation deals with some races just yet and I was stuck waiting for the Andor Federation Party to become the ruling party as they were the central foundation to the federation I was working on. I did some long term mining and armada construction for both the Andors and the Skylaxians a couple times as I had 13 minutes in-game before the election and this got me into trouble. The Thoraxians wiped out alot of the Skylaxian's outposts and their large armada count that I was hoping to use to influence the Burlusts with later and the Andors got sick of the Boarines, who had some pirates I guess, and declared war on them even though the Boarine Regent was for interstellar cooperation. I feel I must have missed something and that at least the current Andor-Boarine war could have been avoided perhaps had I been smarter somehow. That this sort of thing can happen I'm ok with but problems earning credits in sufficient amounts is something I'm still learning on how to get around.
I also found it hard to find things to influence what I want sometimes. The Peltians felt terrific towards the Andors and Skylaxians but their respective attitudes were hard to influence as I couldn't find ways for the Peltians to get on their good-side more actively. Tech-gifting helped a lot but not from the Peltians as both the Andors and Skylaxians were far more proactive with research.
I will try some more things and will perhaps start another game with a slightly different strategy later today.
