Okay, before I even mention anything else:
The speed at which actions "play" between turns in the combat is too high. For some things, it's near impossible to even see them move (like the pods). This sort of speed works better when there's a constant momentum to it.... as in, not turn-based.... but the sudden jolt from "making decisions" to "action" makes this alot more jarring than it would be.
There should still be a slider for this overall. I dont think it's likely to be THAT big of a deal on lower difficulties, but playing on Misery I prefer to be able to keep track of everything and make sure I understand which direction all things are moving in. Hard to do that with that sudden jolting.
The controls are alot better.
More feedback later, I only just loaded this up now.
Next is to find out if the Andors will elect anyone yet.
EDIT: Oh, one other thing related to control. The way that ships turn around is a bit of an issue. If I go to do a U-turn, I have no idea which direction my ship will actually perform the turn in, which can lead to smacking into crap you'd otherwise avoid.
EDIT 2: Orrr.... it's not going bonkers with the speed now? What? Was that a glitch, or....?
The slider though is still likely a good idea.
EDIT 3: Ok, some abilities, like the gravity missile, it's hard to even see when they're working. I keep thinking it's glitching because I never see it happen. There needs to be something more to these, visually.
EDIT 4: Ok, this is the biggest problem right now: I've mentioned this before, but bullet sprites are *way* too small. Alot of the time currently, I literally cannot see many of them.... at all. I have to zoom in *very* close before they become apparent, otherwise they look like random pixels that are part of the background. This'll lead to great frustration as well as an assumption that the game is "broken" because players are dying for reasons they cannot see.
It's also a recipe for major eye strain. At the very least there should be an option to simply have the game draw the sprites larger for those that are having trouble spotting them.
Another issue is bullet color VS background color, but..... I dunno what can be done about that one.
EDIT 5: Ok, I kept meaning to bring this one up, time to do so before I forget: Enemy bullets, there needs to be a speed limit imposed on these. Stuff like the Claymore's quick shots.... these dont work at all under a turn-based mechanic. Their speed and pattern is still based on the idea that the player can react, but that's impossible here. As it is, many shot types literally appear, clear the length of the screen, and disappear within the same active turn. Definitely a bad thing.
EDIT 6: Oh geez, that looping movement gets REALLY bad with Afterburner. It's almost too risky to use at all.
EDIT 7: Hmmm, the more I'm messing with this, the more I think the "looping" turn should just be removed outright. It made sense when this was action-based; it's just ultra-annoying in the turn-based version. It can also utterly break some situations; certain "smuggle spacefaring tech" missions can be literally unbeatable because of this, for instance, because you just cant stop your ship from wobbling stupidly in the wrong direction when precise movement is required.
EDIT 8: My allies! They DO STUFF now! "Major" battles with multiple ships on each side are alot more interesting now. I dont have to kill EVERYTHING, I just need to tip the balance enough without getting wrecked. They go by quickly though. I wonder if damage VS player and damage VS NPC should be seperate for NPC bullet types? Particularly as these guys cant dodge or anything, so constant streams of those little green bullets that arent too bad for the player will wreck any flagship. Stuff like that. Need to mess with it more.
EDIT 9: And the last bit for now, all missions with constellations controlled by the enemy are totally broken. Unbeatable in most cases. The player *always* starts right in front of them.... usually right in front of like 5 of them.... and in many cases, this leads to instant death. The player should always start nowhere near any constellations/turrets controlled by enemies.
In an overall sense, the combat is pretty fun right now, barring some obnoxious details and a few major balance problems. The "super-fast bullets" are probably the biggest issue right now, as combat balance and such goes. Oh, and gravity lances are broken and dont render correctly, I think I put that in Mantis already. Having abilities be more necessary makes things that much more interesting, BUT, alot of abilities are still very unbalanced. Many are outright useless (like the virus one) or just kinda weak.
didn't mess with the solar map much yet, as the issues with combat kept getting in the way too heavily.
One thing I DID notice though: Some "major" events are happening IMMEDIATELY. Like, the sorts that really wreck things, happening waaaayyyyyyy before you can do anything at all to change them. I had one start where the Peltians were hit with "Splinter attacks" about 3 minutes in (if that), and.... yeah, there was no stopping this, it wrecked them. Another time, the Evucks decided, 2 minutes in, that they were going to explode and take out half of the solar system, because.... because Evucks, apparently they're jerks that way.
I'll give more feedback about the solar map stuff later tonight, I'll focus on that more.
