Also, let me add another anecdote. I just had one of my probes destroyed in someone elses system after a protracted battle that I had no idea was happening. I actually checked the system and saw the combat animation around the planet my probe was orbiting, but it did not even occur to me that my probe was under attack (it just so happened that my probe was there observing a battle between two other players, I assumed the combat I saw was some "ghost" of their battle). I received absolutely no feedback whatsoever that one of my ships was involved in a battle. This seems like a gross oversight, or a bug.

If one of my ships is involved in battle, I think I should at least be receiving an ingame notification about it so I can react. If not a realtime notification, some post-battle report such as "Your probe in sector 1,1 was destroyed by So-and-so!"

Amusingly, with all the disappearing ships and whatnot, I actually had to message the guy to ask him if he blew up my probe before I understood what had happened.

You guys have a great foundation and really compelling concept for a game here, but there seem to be quite a few major gameplay bugs / oversights that make me feel it's not quite ready for prime-time (by which I mean paying customers). Absolutely loving the aspects that are working, but I'm worried that all the strategic effort I'm putting in is going to go to waste when some fundamental gameplay element isn't working appropriately.