Slitherine

First, the fractions leaders as characters are not even remotely as charismatic as their SMAC counterparts, neither they as diverse. Just general run of the mill dudes lacking any depth I could come up during one evening, no offence. I found quotes to be lacking depth, too. This was first and very strong impression which somehow spoiled the rest of gameplay for me.

Second, gameplay is ok, taking into account it is only nearing first version. (Imho it took 2 add-ons to make civilization V interesting.) Played one full game and a few others I gave up as I usually playing builder style and found not much to be done for me.

Third, the idea with minerals as separate resource is a good one, congrats.

Because the release is near you won't be able to do much gameplay-wise so maybe you would add a few fractions with their leaders and work more on the lore?

I have to agree on all of these points. I hold SMAC as one of my all-time favorite games, which is what initially drew me to Pandora. You are almost where you need to be with gameplay but currently the game has no flavor or personality of its own. The personality of the faction leaders and unique story is part of the reason SMAC still stands out among civilization style games after all these years.

And if I can nitpick, the military guys quote is particularly bad.

Also the fonts are too small. Is there a way to make fonts larger? My eyes hurt after a hour of playing or so.

I'll add an option for that.