The battles

I really like the game but the potential lost in the battles is astonishing. Basically you are just an observer, with minimal possibilities to change anything. Prioritise targets and flee and move at snails pace like a dead whale. Im not suggesting turning this into a bullet hell shooter, but some manual skill is part of any strategy game, too. What I would suggest: ability to target small ships, too. Honestly sometimes the ai fails to engage them. Bring ship speed to a lvl where you can at least partially dodge rocket salvos if they are fired from far away. Imo really frustrating right now, your movement has practically zero influence on whether you get hit or not. Maybe some manual abilities: like the possibility to line up rocket salvos or active use items(repair, shields). Right now it is like watching an aquarium with explosions.

True, there could be more possibilities with the battles. But there are some problems with making faster ships, they would not look very space ship like anymore, moving really fast like they are skating on ice. The balance there is tricky.

Some active thingies is an interesting idea though! Will keep in mind.

And there is the teleport facility, which really can be useful to dodge

One really cool feature would be the ability to control shield density. For example, if I jump into a sector which places my ship nose first facing the enemy, it would be nice to direct more shield strength to the front of my ship.

I love that idea Hampton. Reminds me of when I ran engineering on a crew in Artemis: Spaceship Bridge Simulator. I single handedly made our ship unstoppable by being able to manipulate ship energy to shields and such, so it would be awesomr to see it in this sort of setting as well in any form.

Here's a thought: how about a triangular HUD element that switched your selected ship's power from one subsystem to another (bit like in X-Wing, if anyone remembers that).

So if you tap it at the top, all power goes to the engines: you're faster, but your weaponry reloads and shields recharge much slower. If you tap it on the left corner, all power goes to weapon reloading. Right corner, all power to shields. Tap anywhere else for a mixture (e.g. dead centre for equal power to everything, or anywhere along the base for a balance of power between shields and weapons, with minimal power to engines).

This would allow you to play more of a part tactically, constantly adjusting performance in a fight. You could also specialise ships more - have a close combat ship that pushed power to engines and charged across the map, then switched power to weapons to blast the opponents out of space before they had a chance to react...