Sorry if any of this is a complete repost.
Here are a couple of my thoughts from my first few games of multiplayer over the weekend.

Loading the game:
Would it be possible to make it so that it keeps a loading screen up showing everyones load progress instead of bringing up the map? as it stands, it allows people already loaded to queue up orders for when it does load. It also confuses a few new players (myself included) who think the game has crashed/disconnected when it loads, and so quit straight away.

AI (or lack there of) for players that have disconnected:
Could we have a setting so we can set the level of AI to take over players that get dropped? at the moment they are just dead ducks who dont do or build anything. That AI is just left with whatever ships there were when the guy dropped, and his resources just accumulate. Its extremly annoying when you're in a major teamed offensive only to have your ally drop half way through. It just stops you in your tracks, and can take you from hero to zero in a few minutes. How about for a team game, another random player is given control of the guy who has dropped?