Should i prepurchase?

I personally wouldn't say it is 'Trinity with titans'.

However, if I were you i'd only prepurchase Rebellion if you're thinking of playing it in MP mostly. The AI isn't too good at the moment.

Ladder ranking I don't know.

The differences are along the lines of:

Each race gets:

-A titan

-Split into 2 subfactions(rebels and loyalists).  They get seperate new techs/titans/corvettes

-6-7 new research topics(most of them are more interesting then +x% damage).  Some of the highlights include TEC loyalists being able to build 2 starbases per gravity well

-a new capitalship

- a new type of frigate(the corvette).   The corvette is a fast manueverable but very fragile frigate(think a big fighter almost) which specializes in fighting LRFs & capitalships(the latter in swarms)

Additionally the game adds:

-A few new victory settings/game types

- all capital ship abilities now have 4 ranks, ultimate s now have 2 ranks.

hmm, that's all that really comes to mind.

Hmmm well, can i play multiplayer atm without premades (teams of friends), so is there a functioning multiplayer lobby?

Are there diverse mp maps? some with choke points etc or is the choice down to a few?

Ahh so its like a huge expansion with overhauls and new content. As i noticed in a few videos the HUD hasn't been altered much, nor has the camera. Sadly i read vasari aren't playable at the moment?

As far as I know, lobby works.

It's still the same engine as Trinity, just enhanced a bit.

It IS a Beta, so it will be buggy and not have all the content yet such as the Vasari, but they'll be playable sooner or later.

I just hope the AI will get some loving on the next patch ^^

Isn't it ten quid/USD/EUR off now though?

One of the important reason is that, you purchase the pre-order, then the publisher get the money early, then the chance of dev guys be fired is decreased and also the chance to develop Sins2 is increased.

Considering the reality of IT industry, you know I am not joking. 

You should buy it if you like Sins and want Sins, only with more stuff. Since that's what it is at the end of the day. If you've had enough Sins, then this probably won't change your mind.

(It's $10 off right now if you already own Trinity and buy through Stardock, yeah.)

EDIT: nevermind.

Here is the thing with AI developers and their dilemma.

1. Make the AI over the top, aka cheating
• Since the computer already know where every ship is, its currently velocity
• Know where all strategic weapons are located
• Know the map inside and out, all chokepoints and with backup fleets customized to the player
• Result: A ridicously AI even at easy, becomes too hard to win, people lose interest.
2. Make the AI lenient
• Makes all the wrong moves
• Walks into choke points without any scouting
• Result: Too easy, people win all the time, people lose interest

So in either case it is a lose-lose scenario. Of course with every type of strategy player there is out there, turtlers, tankers, early offensive, long-ranger, spammers, or a combination, it is very hard for the programmers to program in every possible AI scenario into the game. That is a full time job even with a dozen testers and programmers working hand in hand for at least half a year.

Since Ironclad is pretty much a startup with like 5 years experience and typical AI programmers are being hired by the dozen by the big studios with big budgets, so you end up with a guy who is probably fresh out of university, probably with a computer science degree who doesn't play games at all and therefore probably don't know strategy and the intricacy of the classes of ships. That is before I go into the fact, we are playing in a 3 dimensional space not just x and y coordinates.

I think the point is that the AI is worse now then it was in vanilla Sins. We were never talking Deep Blue here, but the vanilla AI didn't do downright silly things like forgetting how to build frigates.

Honestly OP, if money is tight and you already have trinity, I don't think at this point Rebellion gives 30 euros worth of content. At least compared to the ratio original Sins and that $10 expansions gave. Unless they have a lot of partially finished content they haven't put into the beta yet (in addition to the Vasari of course), I think their ambition with this project fell well short of what they wanted. Unless the changes add things like the Scenarios they talked about get added in future betas, I'd say your safe waiting for it to get quite a bit cheaper.

I do not think this is an issue with Sins. Keep in mind that Stardock, the publisher, not Ironclad, the original game studio, is doing a lot of the work for this expansion. The reason is because Ironclad is working on their next game, Sins of a Dark Age, at the same time. As Ironclad is still a small studio, SoaDA is certainly their main focus right now and it seems unlikely they would even start exploring the idea of Sins 2 until its released. Even then I bet they'll keep working on Sins of a Dark Age a bit after release, so my prediction is that Sins 2 won't be out until at least 3 years after the release of SoaDA.

Point is, I do not think money is the limiting factor in their decision not to do a Sins 2.

Exactly. I wouldn't mind them porting over Trinity's AI and just making them build a titan as well.