What I can remember being frustrated over is trying to figure out how research works and not being able to find the information easily.
Select a topic, select a scientist, choose a whole number of labs (from 1 to max), 'Add Project', await results.
Another is that I was trying to figure out what I was doing wrong when I was building research labs but not getting more research labs in the research tab (what I think I was doing here is building partial research labs by accident, but I don't have any way of knowing for sure) I'm sure there's more that I've forgotten. That one might be better served by an IRC channel though. IRC helped me a lot when I was bludgeoning Dwarf Fortress into submission, and I think it would help a lot for Aurora as well. I'm sure there's more stuff that I had trouble with, but I forgot what it was as I encountered shiny new stuff.
The user base of Dwarf Fortress is orders of magnitude greater than that of Aurora. I seriously doubt enough people would join an IRC channel to make it useful. Certainly I'd expect a better result from asking questions in the The Academy section of this board.
The other thing I'd like to see is a detailed tech tree that lists what each technology unlocks, and what the unlock is good for.
Aurora doesn't have a 'Tech Tree', it has dozens of 'Tech Vines' - it's all quite linear. Ninety-nine percent of it is:
Tech ---> improved version of Tech for double RP ---> etc.
Engines use a variant:
reactor ---> engine --> improved reactor ---> improved engine ---> etc.
And a handful of techs have no prerequisites and no upgrades:
Asteroid mining modules, terraforming modules, troop transport bays, etc.
As it is, I have to guess, such as what path I need to follow to get mass drivers so my colonies can send minerals to eachother? I'm guessing that its under projectile weapons? I don't have the spare research labs to get there yet, so I haven't been blindly researching.
None. Unless you do a conventional industry start, in which case its ... (checks) ... none. Well, Trans-Newtonian Research but that's a given.
I also think the tutorial does a small disservice by having players start with the advanced start. It felt overwhelming to me, and I did much better being able to do one step at a time via the conventional start.
A conventional industry start
is the advanced start - 'advanced' meaning more difficult. The standard (ie, TN start) provides the player with pretty much everything they need to perform all the basic actions of the game, whereas a conventional industry start requires the player to build/research/discover everything from the ground up, and thus unable to do almost anything right off the bat - a situation that almost all new players find extremely frustrating.
What I mean to say is that with the standard, TN start you can still do 'one step at at time', whereas with a conventional industry start you
must, and can
only do 'one step at a time' - and if you don't do the right steps, in the right order, you're screwed.