i wish to write my general point of view on the situation, after many hours of gameplay.
First of all: my name is Marco, i'm 35 and i played all the X titles, i am one of those guys who's not liked Rebirth and loved X3, so take my words for what they are
I've got 3 phases since i play this game: 1) i was very excited, 2) i was very disappointed, 3) (now) i'm happy to see that you are working very very very good in the right direction and you are making a game which i think all the other Game producer can only envy it.
I would like to share with you just a few considerations, i'm not here wasting our time talking about bugs, couse i'm sure you will fix it like you always did, so:
1) The map: it's a super job, it's efficent, easy to use and very helpfull, but sometimes it is difficult to understand which products are purchased in a certain sector, even if the filter is a good help, sometimes the offer box confuses a little.
2) I think it would be very useful tomorrow, to be able to select several miners or traders and to give them the same order without having to set them one by one, for example: sometimes it happens that I build 10 miners, I want all of them to mine metal minerals in the "X" sector, but I have to set them one by one, unless I missed something.
3)The highways, the much loved Highways
. I know there is a mod to remove them, but even if I have never loved them I started using them, and I must admit that in a universe without jumpdrives they might make sense, even if it is always bad to have to head towards a highway rather than towards space , but these still remain my personal ideas. What I find boring though, is that when selecting a point in a sector as a destination, often the shortest way to get there is marked in orange, but even if you are closer to the Gate than to the highways, the suggested direction "go back" giving you the impression that you have to go back a few hundred meters and take a small piece of highway to get to the Gate: it is quite boring.4)Movement of ships in general, especially L and XL: I am sure you will already be aware of this and that it is a problem that you will solve, but often and willingly, especially if in formation, when I give the command "attack" on an enemy capital or station , they don't shoot, they make strange journeys, they turn instead of shooting. I would like to know if it is a problem related to a necessary AI improvement or why the Captains have low skills, or both maybe?
5)character design and ships: this was the first disappointment at first glance, I was hoping for characters with an aspect that recalled a lot that of X3 (Teladi apart), it is true, on X3 we did not have the opportunity to meet them in person, however the animations during communications and above all their voices were done really well, now you even recognize Bernd's voice when you talk to a Teladi or am I wrong
? As for ships, I must say that if there was something I would have kept of Rebirth even if I hadn't loved it, it was the ship designs, they had many more details and had a "more serious" and less "toy" design. I have to say that what I see on Split, is very better. However, it is not a criticism, but a personal opinion. The game has a lot of features and a great potential, which makes this a quite superfluous speech. (...BUT .... !!)6)Last and most important point, I write this aware of the fact that I am not the head of the world, but if I can humbly suggest something, it is certainly to add (as you are already doing among other things) other races, other weapons, many .. .. many other sectors, other ships, especially the never forgotten and very important one: Battleships. Nothing else ..... or maybe .... ah! Here's what I forgot! I BORON!
If you let us crying while piloting our ship once again in Kingdom's End with the same legendary music track by Alexei Zakharov, maybe just a little touched up to integrate her in 2020, do you have any idea how much we would like you? Even more than we already like you, even if we are always here to criticizing criticizing criticizing ... but we wouldn't do it if we didn't really care about the masterpieces you've done so far. You are doing very good.That's all i was having in mind for now, hope i did not bored you.