[douglas]

Going in order across then down:

1. Going back to SEIII's starting tech selection method rather than just low/medium/high is a good idea, and basing it on research cost instead of number of tech levels is a great improvement. Back in SE3 with just a few extra starting tech levels, I'd take Fighters 12 and start the game with fighters boasting more shields, CS, ECM, and firepower than most ships would have for quite some time. I hope the game host can specify the amount of starting RP's arbitrarily rather than selecting from a limited number of choices.
Hmm, cultural tech, I wonder how that works.

2. I see abstract "conditions" have been broken down into concrete aspects. I wonder if races will be able to have different optimal conditions, so how good a planet is depends on the race.
Planetary damage? Is that like SEIV's 10% value decrease from glassing? I assume it will be easier to repair damage than to improve the initial conditions/value.

3. Ship design obviously taken from Starfury. I hope the possible number and positioning of weapons, shields, armor, etc. aren't significantly dependant on shipsets. Otherwise, shipset design could become just another thing that needs to be optimized to be competitive. I wonder how much of Starfury's component damage model was also carried over.

4. It's nice to have government type actually affect the game, but I was hoping for something a bit more interesting and varied than this. Each government should have its own strengths and weaknesses, not just another point on the linear progression of perfectly corresponding bonuses and penalties.
Anarchy should not be a viable choice. Without government, how is a military going to get organized? Not to mention all the other public goods and services that a government can provide. Face it, there are some things essential to any large society's wellbeing and protection that the private sector simply will not provide without government regulation. This should be represented by many penalties far larger than a mere 8%, and I can't think of any logical reason for it to give any correspondingly large bonuses.

5. Eye candy, no big deal... except that we finally get to see directly how much damage a facility can take.

6. More options for victory conditions are good, but I hope we can edit all the numbers involved directly.

7. More eye candy. Should help make it successful in retail, but I don't particularly care very much about it.

8. Load and save entire game setups! Very nice. It looks like starting positions can be specified manually without editing the map, too.