I think you miss the point. FO beta tester will only play the game and won't be able to change settings directly. I am quite sure the FO staff will play their game theirself, but want to hear some more opinions.
Being nervous the game could get imbalanced just because beta testers will be recruited from donators is definitly not logical. There is no proof or disproof the donators won't be capable enough testing the game.

At the beginning of this thread I hoped and believed that there won't be no flaming, whining or arguing at all. The beta key is something like a reward for me, something the donators get because their financial support show high interest in the game. In fact, there is no real flaming or whining, yet. But I am curious about the next 20 posts.

Now, the arguing begins. "Ooooh, I am so damn nervous, maybe the game will suck. This would be awful, because...aeehhh....hmmm...to be honest - I haven't paid for the game. I didn't even have to go to the game store to get the game. I just downloaded it. Fast and easy. Hmmm.
Nevertheless - I do have  significant arguments why not only donators should get a beta key."

Oh man, these guys are developing this game for years. The balancing in V3 wasn't perfect. Neither was it a disaster.

Did you trust the staff so far? Trust them now! I do.

The staff's decision is absolutly fair.
Oh, and there will be support für V3, as they mentioned. Problems will be solved with a patch, for sure.

There is an absolutely MASSIVE point of debate within RTS communities about how a game should be balanced, whether they should be balanced from the "top-down" or tailored towards lower skill players.

Communities currently lean quite heavily towards being balanced from the "top-down" (by the BEST players) as they have the clearest perspective of units and abilities within the game.

bruhahahahahahaha; sry for that but bruhahahahha; nothing against doca and optec but it is better not to speak of the V3 PR balance;

though I also hope this won't end up in a flame fest, but given from my personal experience it will;

regarding the "you didn't pay for it and the download is fast as well":: as a small reminder Star Trek is dead. LegaCrap was the last twitch a dead horse made and it was an awful twitch. It is true that I didn't donate anything, but I still want to see a polished fun to play product and not a game were the only "intelligent" choice is to pick race X cause their destroyer Y is to cheap given the power it has.

while I don't say that the donator's are all silly hats, I somehow believe that there is a real difference how a Play4Fun and a Play2Win player plays and sees a game. Be it the way he plays the game or otherwise.

BTW: How will you guys choose which donators will be beta testers? Or is that already decided?
Also it would be nice if you told us who are the beta testers (once they are chosen ) - so we can squeeze some info out of them 

Khmmm thats a lot of beta testers....

The more the better it is for us I guess

So tommorow some of you guys are going to get just about the most anticipated mod in the world right now. Lucky bastards

I hope at least you can post some general impressions after a few games.

Ill promise ill spoil as much as i can to you Aslong its allowed that is I called myself in as sick for tomorrow xD