Another thing. I've noticed that to do well at this game, you need to log in OFTEN. You don't have to DO much, but you have to keep checking to see if any new ships have entered scanning range, or if one of your allies has messaged you. What would be good is if, at least for paying users, you have the option of email alerts. Get an email whenever an important in-game event occurs. Maybe with an options menu with a bunch of tick boxes to decide exactly what events you want to be notified of... e.g. maybe some people will want to be told when their ship arrives at a system, while others are better at keeping mental track of their ETAs, and only need to be informed of unpredictable events, like new fleets entering their space. That'd save people a lot of time in terms of how often they need to log in.
Definitely agree about the (optional) email alerts. I got totally screwed up in the early game because I forgot to log in for ages, so I didn't grab as much land as I could have done.
I think I just encountered a bug. I'm playing in the game Omicron Ain. I sent a fleet of 11 ships to Blue's star "Girtab." Just an hour before arriving I checked, saw he still just had 3 ships there as always, and there were no blue ships moving on the radar. Came back now, expecting to find the star mine... but instead, my fleet was gone. Checked the Events, and it said that he had 21 ships there and I'd been wiped out, and he had 16 left. Ordinarily, I'd think I'd just missed something, but he doesn't have any ships there! Clicking on the system shows zero ships. There are no blue carriers jumping away from the system. It has to be a bug. Fortunately, it's not going to impede my chances of winning the game that much, but it's annoying nonetheless! EDIT: I mentioned this bug in the chat, and another player said he'd encountered the same bug when attacking that same system earlier in the game.