Feedback on this lovely game (after a day of play and score over 8k)

Hi there!

I just registered to give some fair feedback on the game.

First of all - I love this genre. This is really bad situation that there are very few games like this. My opinion might be biased because of that. I'm also quite good at video games, and I min/max game very quickly and exploit mechanics as much as possible.

So, here we go:

I enjoy the game quite a bit. The combat system is pretty solid, the turn-based movement in the galaxy map (or whatever it is called ) is a neat idea. There is decent variety of ships to pick from. In other words, the main idea is solid.

BUT... (there goes the problems I have with the game, and some solutions, to pick from to fix it a little bit)

1. I managed to finish the game on Hard difficulty after playing the game for one day. Over 8k score.
Game is too easy. Snow-balling is really easy to do, and once you get enough stuff, there is nothing stopping you from winning. The last fight is the easiest one, in other words. I think this should be the other way around!

There quite a few games that have this weird syndrome, whenever there is some kind of loot/level progression - game is most difficult at the beginning, when you have nothing yet, and gets easier and easier as you go further. In my opinion, the score you get, and how far you get, should be based on how much difficulties you manage to overcome. If the game is hard at the beginning, and easy at the end, you'll ALWAYS get to the end, once you overcome the hard beginning.
And don't get me wrong here - Witcher 3 (!) has the exact same problem. This is something many developers can't quite solve with their progression systems.
Proposed solution: less rewards for clearing sectors (war for survival, and not farming - make decisions to engage enemies worthwhile), more scarcity of resources. Even make ammo cost scrap. Make enemies progressively stronger, punish players not using available mechanics - distress beacons and such... well, such? There lies the second problem...

2. Too few mechanics to worry about.
From tricks you can use in the game, you have like... 1. Distress beacon (while being great mechanic) is the only thing you can do actively. This makes decision makes way too simple, because the only thing you usually have to consider is how to use this beacon.

Another mechanic we have in the game are special areas - blackholes, electric-fields and asteroid belts. They are way too irrelevant and/or forced upon the player.

Proposed solution: I'd say it would be good to make them more of a risk-reward thing, than simply some random occurrence, that has very little impact on the game. (To this moment I have no idea what asteroids do... :V)
Also, there needs to be more of these, with various conditions - you can't leave until you do X, you can't use X type of weapon (you'd have to allow player to know beforehand, so he can prepare himself) and so on.
They need to be way more impactful, probably more rewards for entering such zone, but much greater danger (maybe a shortcut, maybe some better chance for loot, and so on).

3. Ship progression.
While I like the fact that there are different ships in the game, I see no reason to use any other than the very last, other than in being locked. The next ships you unlock are simply better in every way (100 more hull is not a good enough reason to pick the ship, when you are getting 100% more main guns :S). This makes decision process boring (or non existent) - you always pick the biggest ship. There are no builds, there is no trial and errory. Just faceroll (a pleasant one, still).

Proposed solution: Ships should be DIFFERENT - be mounting points, mounting points positions (all ships have similar design, which is too bad. Why not make ships with locked main guns firing angle? Like many frontal guns, but little in the back?), hull/shield proportion (why not make ships with far more hull, but very little shields, and the opposite?). Maybe even let player switch the ship to alien one, with some sort of random event on a map and/or some station?

4. Scoring

You get 1000 points for starting at hard difficulty. You can just die next sector, and you get 1000 points. That is just dumb. Nothing more to say here. Also, selling your stuff before finishing the game is... kind dumb too.

Proposed solution: Difficulty should be a multiplayer, not a flat score. x1 Easy, x1,5 Normal, 2-3 Hard (or whatever you feel like). This makes far more sense, because you get score for getting further in that difficulty, and not simply a flat amount for starting. Also, stops players from abusing it to unlock ships quickly. (I've done that as soon as I noticed it works like this - I min/max ).
Secondly, scores for leftover scrap should ALWAYS include how much your ships are worth, as if you sold them. This is a bug, imho, a not a big change.

So, yeah, there is my feedback. Please note, that I took time to write this, which means I do care about your game - I'd love to see those changes to be live, because I really want game like this to play. I want you succeed, and I think this is how you can achieve this. :=)
Hope it helps, and good luck!