Hello, I have more than 30 hours into BFGA2 beta and here's my feedback:

Quality of life changes:

• I'd like to save admiral skills and fleet upgrades with a fleet build, this way I can't forget to pick them everytime I change subfaction.
• I'd like to select my faction and then queue up for a match, allowing me to see my opponent's faction and plan my ship, skills and upgrades selection accordingly like it was in BFGA1. (In the case of chaos it would be needed to choose even the subfaction accordingly to the opponent since some skills and upgrades are specific)
• The firing range selector is still set to Armada 1's values: 3k-6k-9k-12k, it should be updated to 4.5k-9k-13.5k-18k

General Balance changes:

• I think that no Battleship should cost less than 301 points in order to avoid the 4 or more battleship spam builds that we are facing during these days.
• When boarding a drifting hulk I think we should receive more than 1 troop value. Maybe even take us to the second of the three crew steps. At the moment it is never worth it to board a drifting hulk in my experience.

Faction specific Balance Changes:

IMPERIAL NAVY : (unlocked only half of their stuff, so maybe other people's feedback might be better than mine)

• Many high tier ships have 63 armor all around instead of 83 front 63 side and 63 rear of the other ships. (Grand cruisers, Emperor and a couple of other battleships)

SPACE MARINES: (unlocked only half of their stuff, so maybe other people's feedback might be better than mine)

• The Battle Barge is too expensive, 450 and 495 is way too much. I'd make the mark 1 cost not more than 350 (maybe even less but surely above 301 to avoid a 4 B attleBarge spam) and the mk 2 375 or even 350.
• Even the strike cruisers could benefit from a price reduction but not as significant as the battle barge's one.

CHAOS : (I maxed them out so I should know something about them)

• Lances need to deal a lot more damage, without this buff chaos can't kite at all. I think a 50% or even 70% damage buff would be ok. It's not only chaos that needs it, all factions do.
• Bloodletter party: on the selection screen the troop damage value is not displayed. I would also apply this to all line ships instead of only the flagship, like the honor the chapter ability of the Space Marines.
• Helldrake Forge: the description doesn't specify which kind of assault action is affected. Is it only assault boats or also boarding, lightning strike and bloodletters party? Personally I'd make it only target assault boats, otherwise there would be no reason to pick "chaos space marines" over this one.
• I've also noticed that there are some inconsistencies regarding the damage output of macro weapons: for example the cruiser slaughter and the grand cruiser retaliator share the same merged macros, with the same icon and name, but the stats on the retaliator say that it does twice the amount of damage compared to the slaughter. I've also noticed that the carnage cruiser has both macro and heavy macro weapons, but the damage of the heavy macros seems lower than the one dealt by the regular macros.

CORSAIRS AND CRAFTWORLDS : (played only against them and never as them)

• Didn't play them much so I really can't tell. Only strange thing that I noticed is that the void stalker costs more than 500, making it the most expensive ship in the game. Don't know if it's worth it.

DRUKHARI : (I maxed them out so I should know something about them)
Whenever my opponent didn't bring 4 battleships and tried a different build, the matches were always tactical and interesting, so I think that such playstyle should be encouraged.
Another little change that I would like is the following: colour Drukhari shields the same way of other factions', I can never understand when can I use a lightning strike on them or not.

• The Battleship prices: As a general rule I think that no battleship should cost less than 301, in order to avoid 4 battleship spam. This shoud apply to every faction in the game. At the moment the Dying sun costs 14 more than the Falling Moon and has no torpedoes, making it worthless.

• Cruisers need to be cheaper by at least 40 to 60 points. Without considering Necrons, Drukhari have the most expensive cruisers in the game. This, coupled with cheap battleship options means that the players are encouraged to use only Battleships.

• Price adjustments that would seem nice to me:

  • Battleships: Dying sun 310, Falling Moon 325-335, Obsidian Rose 350, Iron Thorn 401-420 (yes the Iron Thorn's price at the moment is ok, maybe even a little bit too much.)
  • Cruisers: Bloodied Claw: 150-165, Flayed Skull 160-175, Bleak Souls 155-170, Fiend Ascendant 201-225.

ORKS : (played only against them and never as them)

• As stated for the Drukhari, no Battleship should cost less than 301 and ork battleships in particular need to be more expensive, 190 price tag is not enough at all. They are able to bring 6 of them and it is never a fun battle in my experience. If the orks should get more ships lore-wise, ork players should swarm the opponent with smaller class ships rather than few very big ones in my opinion.

NECRONS: (unlocked almost all of their stuff)

nerfs

• The Starpulse wave and the unstable pulse core are too powerful, there is almost nothing the opponent can do about it. I think it would be fun to have it as a defensive tool rather than an offensive one, making it able to instantly destroy ordnances, torpedoes, fighters bombers and assault boats. To fulfill this role, the starpulse would need a shorter cooldown because the Doomscythes squadrons are really bad in this moment, they're only useful for scouting. The unstable pulse core could give it the ability to affect also enemy escorts and light cruisers, but it should never be able to destroy big line ships.

If we don't consider this ability, Necrons are surprisingly very weak in my opinion.

buffs

• Their ships are missing a way to instantly repair subsistems. The only one they currently have is Pyramidal reconstruction. Every faction has a ship based ability to repair subsistems, whereas Necrons have to rely on a flagship upgrade. Maybe it would be nice to introduce a Cairn TombShip variant with Pyramidal Reconstruction insted of making it an upgrade.
  I know that they repair something every 60 seconds but I think it's not enough.
• Teleports have a very long cooldown, Necrons severly lack mobility, this coupled with the reduced range of the weapons and the lack of shields make them very vulnerable. I think teleports colldown should be set from the 90 seconds to 45 seconds (yes, making it 30 on reload stance). This would allow Necrons to truly "jump everywhere" as the game director said in an interview and allow them to flank the enemy and hit him in the rear, making necrons a very fun faction to play as and against.
• They are squishy because they lack shields and something to make up for it. Hull cauterization is not enough, because it is very slow and it can replace up to 50% hp of the ship just once and that's it. On the other hand, other factions get shields which means that they have something like a 30% hp that can be regenerated every time that they get out of combat.
• Their line ships could benefit from a price reduction or from a significantly increased tankiness and firepower, at the moment they cost like 50% more than the other factions counterparts and are barely better if not worse in some cases. In tabletop they could go to to toe with a ship of a superior class and at the moment they do this only in the price tag.
• They mutiny. Aren't all Necrons slaves to their overlords? Shouldn't they be all "unbreakable" as space marines?
• They have a very weird way of turning compared to other factions, it seems like they can't stop and turn but have to always be moving forward too somehow. This leads them to crashing into each other very often when in tight formation.
• Their ship upgrades are all too situational and very few of them are decent, the only good one is the unchivalrous starpulse. Phase shifter (no dmage from asteroids) is ok but not so useful in my opinion. Tesseract crypt is ok now but will become useless if Necrons get the subsistem repair buffs that they need. The Shards of Nyadra'zatha seems good because Necrons are ok at boarding but it only applies to the flagship,whereas the Chaos' ability Tzeench's flamers, which does the exact same thing, applies to all line ships. Residual Absorption sounds good too but you need to be in a gas cloud to make use of it and I have noticed that gas cloud are surprisingly uncommon in ranked. Nightmare shroud sounds good too but only applies to the flagship. I don't know wether Living metal substructure is ok or not because in the description it doesn't say what does "area damage" mean, anyway it only applies to escorts and sounds quite situational. Eldritch bridge suffers the same fate as "living metal substructure" because the actual buff value isn't displayed and it applies only to the flagship anyway. Structural analisis sounds really good but I need an escort to run with my fleet to use it, which means that I'm paying 50 points to have double critical hit chances (+7.5%). It would be very very good if it was applied to all ships. The last upgrade which allows particle whip to deal damage to 2 targets at the same time is applied only to the flagship. I think that if all these upgrades were less situational, they could all have a use in the game. "Applied to ..." should become "applied to all ships" or "applied to line ships".

TYRANIDS: (played only against them and never as them)

• As stated for other factions, their battleships are too cheap, in particular the Biotentacles one is under the 301 price tag.

• Their carriers are very cheap too: the infestation devourer has 4 launch bays and costs 199, I think it should cost at least 201-220, because the Chaos Styx, which has the same exact role costs 250ish. The Devourer should still be cheaper than the Styx because it has no weapons but being able to bring 6 of them is too much.
  They also have a battleship with 7 launch bays and while other factions have to pay at least 400 to have 1 to 4 launch bays on battleships, Tyranids can have 7 without paying the same amount. Since said carrier has no other real weapon apart from the launch bays, I think it would be balanced to keep the 7 launch bays and increase the cost to at least 401.

• I also think that fighters should be a defensive and scouting tool rather than an offensive one. At the moment Tyranids players can chew through the enemy's turrets with ease even if the opponent is keeping a tight formation, bracing for impact and using his own fighters. This leaves the opponent defenseless and allows Tyranids to use the assault boats and slaughter the crews. I get that this is what Tyranids are supposed to do, but this way it feels too powerful compared to how easy it is to pull it off. I would either nerf their fighters or allow everyone's fighters to only scout and attack ordnances, not turrets, just like in BFGA1. This way Tyranids would still be able to give their assault boats cover with fighters by distracting the enemy's turrets, but will take higher casualties, making this strategy a little bit harder in my opinion.

TAU: (played only against them and never as them)

• They are affected by a bug that gives the player the escorts that survived from the previous battle. If we don't consider the bug, they seem to work just like they did in BFGA1 so I guess they're ok.

If you managed to read through all of this, I thank you. Also let me know if you agree with everything or disagree with something.

(If there are any grammar or spelling mistakes feel free to tell me, I'd be happy to correct them)

@aram_thehead
criticism of your nid judgement

• you want a hive ship to cost as much as a battlebarge?
  i understand the intention of the "all battleships over 300pts" idea, and its well intentioned
  but hive ships are actually bad for their cost, they dont stand a chanse in actual combat and are already overpriced for what they bring
  especially as they are what keeps your fleets morale
  even tho battlebarges are probably one of the worst battleships hive ships should be noticaly cheaper as they are just worse

• there is a very good reason nid carriers are cheaper then chaos
  chaos doesnt just have more charges, they also have bombers wich are ordnance that can return and regain the charge after surviving a bombing run unlike the assault boats nids are stuck with
  add to that that the styx has weapons that benefit from interceptor spotting while that devourer doesnt have any other weapons and can lose its turret defense from weaponsfire
  there is also ordnance quality, nid ordnance is slower then all others making them easier to counter with maneuvers
  carrier hive ship is the worst of the hive ships and shouldnt cost more then 320 honestly, the only reason they work at all currently is because people dont understand how ordnance works

• no assault boat would ever land if you removed harpies ability to wreck turrets
  and even now they dont really do anything
  the only purpose they have is herding your enemy into the maws of horribly overpriced devourers that you had to carefully sneak behind them
  when playing against a person who knows ordnance the only purpose of that waste of a hive ship is intimidation and herding

@ashardalon Thank you for your answer.

• I don't know the true potential of a regular hive ship so I can't really tell, but the carrier based one seems kind of cheap if you compare it to the other factions. About the battle barge: yes, it should definitely be cheaper. I think its price should be something like 340-350ish like in armada 1. You could argue that it received a buff in the form of the "honor the chapter" ability, but you must also consider that the biggest strength of the barge were the bombardment cannons insane critical chances, which are not a thing any longer since there is no way to buff them like there was in armada1.
• I think that tyranids' assault boats are not so useless as you say, at the moment they can literally empty a ship with ease. I think that increasing the devourer price by simply 2 points won't hurt Tyranids that much as you think, it will only hurt players that want to spam carriers. Yes, I considered that the styx is armed and can benefit from the fighters scouting actions. I didn't consider that it has bombers that can be used more than once so it makes much sense for the devourer to cost only 201 and not up to 220 as I stated in the original post.

glad you trust my input
no need to change your original post
good info for devs to have original impression
i know lance hive ship can look impressive to imperials when combined with focusing down morale
and lots of peoples first impression of nid carrier is getting their ship hulked out of nowhere
but if you play nid carrier vs a player who knows how to counter carriers realize quickly they are a joke
nid carriers are close to the definition of all or nothing, either they all get through and your ship gets hulked or nothing happens at all

definitely true the barge needs buffs, and price reduce is one of them, tho it should be expensive, barges are rare
its just the comparison to hive ships that i had a problem with
nids are massively overpriced all across the board currently for a faction that should be a swarm
price increases should be the last solution for nids currently even if they would have to be toned down a bit to justify a price reduction

also think you might be underestimating a hulk recrewing
there are limited boarding charges and a 1 crew ship will still need people to spend a charge unless they want to rely on a risky collateral damage crit that cant be relied on if the ship hasnt had its generators critted
so 1 or 18 crew its the same for a devourer
and except for the critted systems the ship will work as well
the -20% firerate will do little to its effectiveness
1 crew ship shouldnt be rushed to the front, but as a bunch of weapons firing from the back they can be deadly
tho a hulk can be as useful or more as a scuttle suicide bomb because scuttling is ridiculously deadly currently