First, I'd like to say that the new UI is awesome! The game overall looks great, too.
That said, there are some bugs and things that will make the game annoying in the future if they persist.
Bugs first -
- Crash to Desktop in the Ship Designer: If I look at an existing design and click on the first item on the list at the bottom of the screen, the picture of the ship goes blank. If I then double click the ship icon on the left that corresponds with the ship I was looking at, the game crashes to the desktop. It also happens sometimes when I double click the first item on the list if I have already closed the ship designer and then reopened it. Steam stays up, but I have to relaunch the game.
- If two constructors are stacked together, I can't give orders other than movement. In other words, I can't tell them to guard, sentry or build a starbase. If I move one of the ships away from the other, the command option returns.
- Turning off "Tool Tips" in the options menu doesn't turn them off, but it leaves the last tooltip displayed as an artifact on the screen until I mouse over something that pops another tooltip up. That text object is persistent until the next mouseover, etc. Turning tooltips back on makes them behave normally again.
If it helps, here are my machine specs...
Windows 7 Pro, SP1 (64 bit)
Intel i3-4360 at 3.7 GHz
8 GB DDR3 1600MHz (Single Stick)
NVIDIA GeForce GTX750, Driver 9.18.13.4052, Date 7/2/2014
Corsair Force LX SSD, 256GB (The game program and Steam are installed on this drive)
Western Digital 1TB SATA HDD (The game data, such as saved games and ship designs are on this drive)
The couple of items below aren't bugs, but they are annoying to deal with. I tried to find a way to turn these features off via the menu and found nothing. Some way to disable them ingame would be great...
- Having to give each ship orders before being able to end the turn. A skip remaining turns option would be nice. Some of the ships are meant to just sit there until something comes along. I have to tell each ship to guard after they move or attack.
- Taking multiple moves to move items up the build list. Having some sort of "move to top" button or a "move item up" button would be nice.
My apologies for not participating in the alpha and waiting this long before trying out the beta. Time hasn't been as disposable of a resource as I thought it would be. I'm more than pleased to see my wife's name approved as a star. She's pretty happy about that too. 
This game has excellent potential and I can see how fun it'll be in the future. You folks deserve a raise.