Ok, here is my feedback for the Chapter 1, version 0.99.48652 BETA 3B from 10th of August.
I have been collecting notes from the previous 2 beta versions too (w/o posting them cause no google docs, I totally blame Schism!) but it seems quite a lot of that stuff has been fixed now so it's kinda solved itself. Below is still what's standing out.
Most critical issue (for me):
1) No support for binding mouse buttons. It is important not to needlessly restrict controls for players with different key assignment habits. I want (and I know for sure I am not the only one here) to be able to bind lander boost and jump to mouse buttons, just like fleet battles ship has fire modes on mouse buttons too. Please allow that.
2) A separate issue is no possibility to bind same keyboard/mouse button for both lander and player ship at the same time. It is strange because captains log can be bound to the same L-button for both planet exploration sub-game and alien conversation sub-game parts. The ideal case would be being able to bind left mouse button to Primary Fire in Fleet Battles AND to Lander Boost in exploration; at the same time being able to bind Right Mouse button to Secondary Fire in Fleet Battles AND to Lander Jump in exploration. Please don't penalise players who are used to keep the other hand on the mouse at all times, rather than on penis 
The UI guys should be able to implement this easily. Too much happiness for us.
Other issues:
3) UI - control settings menu - "Toggle Inventory" binding - confusing name for it. It might be better to rename it to "Toggle Ship Menu" because "Inventory" already exists under this ship menu as one of several sub-tabs which is confusing (consistency of items/menus).
Also, the "Lander Jump" item is more logical to move close to Lander Boost and other lander movement items, rather than like now - after lander camera bindings.
4) Typo? Initial laptop view for setting up player and ship name - the final note says something like "the general is waiting your return". Shouldn't it say "the general is awaiting your return"?
5) Contingency: even before humans get their first Hyperspace Drive as a surprise gift from Tywom, Vindicator has a dedicated slot for hyperspace engine. This is not very sensible, why would anyone reserve space in the construct for possible unknown future technology engines? I bet humans didn't even know that Hyperspace existed before Wymdoo. I guess it would be better to hide this slot until Wymdoo's ship is repaired or make this slot a generic one in the beginning of the game and only after Wymdoo discovery rename the slot to Hyperspace Engine slot:
6) Audio: Kerry has the same (word to word) long audio message on Mars after finding both Wymdoo engines. And he parrots these literally within 1 minute from each other, which is meh. Might be worth to cut the partially truncate or edit the audio for one of the parts found.
7) Planet scan UI: the terrain sign for some planets is "Moon". Now I can understand the Desert or Frozen or Crystal, but Moon doesn't make much sense because Moon is just a companion planet, a generic word. If our Moon is meant specifically as a terrain type, why not calling this type "Luna"? Or "Cratered"... or smth else?
8) UI - selling resources - nice that we got Sell Conventionals button, but it is unclear what it means. Does it sell only all resources and not modules? Or does it sell only non-radioactive resourses?
Selling modules is currently still included within this screen. Once I by mistake sold a module because it was mixed within the other resource-selling tabs. For selling modules, mistakes can be costly so selling them should be moved to another screen or at least button. The best solution would be to add a third button in the bottom: "Sell Items" which will tab to only modules to be sold.
9) UI - it is impossible to sell back fuel, modules and landers - if RUs are urgently needed in SC2 you could basically strip your ship off some parts and still buy what you needed, but not as it is now, which seems a bit lazy.
10) Art - the animated background on Ceres base has huge white clouds behind which is quite silly. Clouds on an asteroid?? Doesn't make any sense, though I admit it is beautiful
11) Audio - Scryve music theme volume is too low when talking to Scryve.
12) Exploration - Saturn rings are still half-way in background to ship and half-way in foreground. Is it meant to be so because of the tilt of the rings towards ecliptic? If not then it's a bug because I can hide half of my ship under the rings while the other half would be visible.
13) UI - consistency:
- When on planets scan screen, the stuff that you want to collect is denoted as "Minerals"
- When on planeds themselves, the stuff is denoted as "Resources"
- When on Lander or Ship menu, the same stuff is denoted as "Elements"
Please decide already what we are going to collect.
I insist that use of word "elements" is very wrong, because most of that stuff is actually compounds, not elements. Word minerals is also not applicable to gases. The best option is to rename the stuff to "Resources". Especially because when you sell them, you get Resource Units.
So in screenshot 3 these would be called "Gaseous Resources" and "Solid Resources" (or perhaps Compounds?). In the worst case, if you don't want for any reason to call them resources, call them just Gases and Solids. But PLEASE, don't call them Elements, for crying out loud.
14) UI / typo - after battles, the scavenge menu always shows the number of RU but the space is missing between the number and the RU sign. This looks ugly:
15) Exploration - surrendering any battle on Ceres is Game Over. Really?? Why. Even SC3 had this part better
16) Planet UI - lander energy, HP and cargo, as well as "resources remaining list" are imho too far from the lander itself. The UI (at least the bars) could be moved downwards to the left and right corners - so one doesn't have to move eyes too far from the action (in order to check remaining HP or cargo space) on a dangerous planet where a lot happens and end up dying. This would also free up space for looking at the beautiful skies:
17) Typo - please correct the resources names (if not yet) to:
Cyanoacetylene instead of Cyano-acetylene
Hydrocarbons instead of Hydro-carbons
Praseodymium instead of Praseo-dymium
18) Exploration - avoiding repeated planet scan activation in space is not perfect yet. Now the ship seems to point to the opposite direction from the planet after exiting from the scan screen. But that doesn't solve the problem of unintended re-triggering of the scan screen, to be honest. The problem is that after exiting scan, a player would normally (at least I do) orient the ship towards next goal and only then start movement, rather than first flying away and then turning. This manual orienting towards next goal when ship stands still above a planet, causes the inadvertent re-triggering of planet scan.
I would suggest a 4-5 second cooldown on re-triggering the planet scan. This should give enough time to escape the planet whatever the ship orientation.
19) Audio - Kerry's audio that an unidentified object is found on planet scan of Ganymede doesn't trigger.
20) UI - now after loading a game, it returns correctly straight to the exploration screen, thanks for that fix. Please also implement this for Saving. After saving a game, it should skip past the options menu straight into the game.
21) UI - planet scan has now danger bars for wind, heat, toxicity. Thanks for that! Now please also add tooltips for the icons of dangers on the bars.
22) UI - descriptions of Engine and Thruster modules say something like "speed 10% Maximum" for all of them. It'd better say "speed 10% of maximum". Small thing but still.
P.S. The general impression is very good now, especially with this latest version. It looks almost polished now and very smooth. I am very glad.
Special thanks for fixing these lately (the funny thing these were mostly undocumented fixes):
- commanders eye colour
- 3-5 seconds of space lag after starting game or loading game
- loading menu reshaping, loading menu sounds and delays
- E-button that killed probs with repeated triggering of some events
- music lags when voice audio was starting on planets/comms
- most missing Kerry's audio not triggering on unidentified object planets
- weird Wymdoo audio pitch for some phrases
- lander indicators on base and resource value indicators everywhere
- strange looped sound jitter issues on planets in lander menu
- voice lags to text on all comms
- planet warning texts and bars
- sell all conventionals button
- planet mwheel camera controls
and etc etc.
Muchas gracias developos!
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