Overall, this build feels balanced, especially where trading is concerned. No more 10m resource planets, which is nice. I feel like I am expanding and gaining skills at the proper pace.

Some feedback...

* Lack of active beta participation means I am basically dominating the entire galaxy at this point with 200+ planets and the next highest player around 40 planets. That player I am currently at war with, so it's pretty clear the galaxy is mine at this point. There's not enough active players for me to be able to gauge the impact of borders, large-scale trade, and difficult player relations decisions.

* I was able to take out most of Spoony's empire with a couple of groups of four battleships hopping from mining colony to mining colony. In this process, I took no casualties, which seems wrong. You need to fix the balance of ships vs. mining colonies somehow. Yes, I know you're advocating trade, but most players are going to engage in war at some point and I don't like the fact that I take take out most of Spoony's empire in a weekend with very little firepower. My battleships should be getting picked off by ground forces during the attack. Perhaps you implement a rule that guarantees one casualty per mining colony attack or something like that? Whatever the solution is, this game mechanic is unbalanced right now and can be addressed in any number of ways - from guaranteed casualties to stronger mining colony defenses to who knows what.

* There's still a big difference between what a 5-10 minute per day player and a one hour per day player can do. I've been taking the one hour per day approach for this beta to see what is possible. I'd like to see this fixed, as I am an advocate of 5-10 minute per day games, but to do so,you'd have to implement a new game mechanic with turns or resource points or something along those lines. I think what this means for active games is that the players who spend tons of time playing are likely going to get huge empires while casual players are going to have to figure out a defensive strategy against those more active players.

* 10 Shipyards limits isn't going to work unless I can self-destruct them and rebuild elsewhere. I have almost all of my 10 max shipyards in two galactic sectors and my empire is now eight galactic sectors large. I can't actually build on the edge of the empire. I suspect the shipyard self-destruct issue is a bug (I logged it).

I'm having a lot of fun, but I wish there were more active players in this game.