Extended Edition Android Beta Test and Feedback!

As promised, I played some seriously drone-heavy games with bolters. They are still quite strong - overwhelmingly so. I think they need to benefit (in terms of balance) from drawbacks to squadron size, just like many weapons benefit from drawbacks to burst.

I think the changes to point defense are helping, but I'm not sure how, exactly. I AM having more trouble getting missiles and rockets through. This can make the early game a little harder for ships without fighters, since you either have to struggle to breach shields, or struggle to breach PD, or struggle to damage hulls with anti-shield weapons.

Speaking of which, the early game is disproportionately hard. Could we have an ally for the first 3-4 turns? That might help us handle early warships enough to gather a little scrap. Your ally's strength and duration could be varied from badass (on easy) to none, on hard. The ideal is always to increase difficulty on a curve equivalent to the player's rising capabilities. A graph of difficulty in this game is a pretty random, jagged line, but that line always seems to average out to a straight line. Increased difficulty on certain maps is usually due to random factors (lots of hazard zones in choke points or before difficult battles) or due to the species we face.

I still hate Trolgar. Not only do their weapons penetrate shields, their weapons COST ME MONEY. Have you considered increasing the scrap reward for bringing down ships with missiles equipped?