First off, fantastic game. I finished playing through the game on normal and it is worth the $20 even in Beta form. 
Interface modification suggestions:
- For sliders, i.e. priority and distance. Enable them to be moved by clicking on the line rather than just the square box.
- For sliders, Also enable the arrow keys to be used to modify the distance. (One push = 1 point, hold down = lots of points)
- For sliders, allow directly entering the number rather than using a slider.
- For fighter, frigate, and cruiser “priorities and distances”, allow them to be edited within the ship creator screen and automatically applied when the ship is placed on the battle screen. (Can be edited before battle if needed as well, just like now. This will make managing the fleet setup far faster.)
- For items, some sort of marking to designate lvl 1, 2 or 3.
- For ship hull listing, list the hulls by type, and with in type listed by cost. Just as the suggestion above it will make it far more intuitive to find what you want. Right now as I browse through the ship hulls it is very hard to compare different hulls and you have different types of hulls next to each other.
Game play modification/balances suggestions:
- Instead of pilots as a resource why not have crew? Fighters are awesome but in the current form of the game I don’t even bother. For a group of cruisers, throw in a couple of dedicated anti-fighter frigates and fighters aren’t a problem at all. Yes is costs more, but everything keeps on living. In the game’s current form, the fleet battles almost inevitably become cruiser/frigate battles. By making this change to how ships are purchased it will force people to be more wary of fighters, and build out more rounded fleets. (It will also get more units on screen, and allow a fleet of fighters by themselves to be effective.) The only thing I don’t know is if a fleet of only fighters may be too effective. If that ends up being the case, then it may mean a fighter needs more than 1 “crew” per ship.
- A way to “group” units in the battle placement screen. These “groups” would have an engage button during the battle. It can only be toggled to once. The ships start on hold or engage, based on what is set in the battle placement screen. The purpose of this would be to have ships with little/no armor but with lots of weapons and speed to join the battle after the heavy ships have already engaged.
I don’t know if these would work, but they might be an idea to play around with. I can see them adding a lot of fun and strategic depth.