They have released the new 0.7a alpha now with more features as of November 19th.
There is a wishlist for it, but it is a bit hard to find on GOG (it may be under it's old name starfarer). It depends on what type of games you like, but if you have really enjoyed games like Master of Orion 2, Space Rangers 2, SPAZ, Nexus the Jupiter incident, there is a strong likelyhood you will enjoy it.
I've found a 'lets play' for the current version 0.7a:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLPeJSt-d6kZ25qYefG5lDwK8won3tD01n but there are many of the older lets play for 0.65.2a (the prior version)
The combat is excellent; it is the games best feature currently.
You have 5 primary classes of ships, with many variations in utility:
-Fighters (the smallest ships that you can purchase):
--Heavy bombers (Daggers for example, are slow, but a terrorfying sight during battle, due to their payload)
--Fast fighters (Talon interceptors)
--Slow heavy fighters (Gladius)
--specialist (Thunder class - uses an ion cannon to disable enemy ships subsystems - great against capitals)
-Frigates:
--Hound class frigate - very fast, and heavily armoured, but lacking a shield. Packs a decent punch with storage to spare. It has a special which releases flares to confuse enemy missiles
--Wolf class frigate - fast, lightly armoured, but comes with a decent shield generator and many energy weapon mounts. It's special involves being able to phase jump small distances; great for catching up to fleeing targets
--Shade class frigate - doesn't have a shield, but it has the ability to cloak and become impervious to weapons. But that actually isn't it's special; it can emit an EMP field which can be used to knock out enemy missiles, weapons and engines within range
-Destroyers:
--Enforcer class - A very heavily armoured destroyer, with multiple ballistic and missile weapon mounts (there are 3 basic weapon types, Energy, Ballistic and Missile). It's special gives it a speed boost to quickly get into battle (or damage a weakly armoured target!)
--Sunder class - A fragile destroyer with a level 3 energy weapon slot (Each weapon type has 3 sizes, small, medium & large), the only one of it's kind at this level and my personal favourite. The damage that can be unleashed is significant, but it's very much an equivalent of a glass cannon. It's special, "High energy focus"; temporarily makes the damage from this thing even crazier.
--Mule class combat freighter - This destroyer packs a lot of space, and a lot of armour with a decent bite to defend it. It's special allows it to briefly improve it's manuverability.
-Cruisers:
--Heron class fast carrier - A decently armoured carrier to service all of the fighters you deploy into battle. Comes with 2 flight decks which allow it to service 2 fighters at once. It's special is point defence drones which fly around attacking anything that might threaten it (on top of it's weapon mounts)
--Falcon class light cruiser - Despite it's name, decently armoured, with great manuverability. And it packs a decent punch. It's special is the same as the Mule class, and allows it to improve manuverability temporarily.
--Doom class phase cruiser - cloaking out of existence isn't just for smaller ships, this cruiser can disappear much like the shade class. It's special is "Fast Missile racks" which loads missiles faster which can be handy with some of the cooldowns.
-Battleships
--Onslaught class battleship - Lower tech, but the most heavily armoured of the battleships. Can take a brutal amount of damage, and also deliver it right back. It's special is the "Burn Drive" which is a bit more useful for the larger ships as it does take a little longer to move around due to their size.
--Paragon class battleship - High tech battleship with an extremely powerful shield and many high energy weapon slots. It's special temporarily strengthens it's shield considerably.
--Astral class supercarrier - The ultimate carrier for your fighters with 6 flight decks. The weakest of the battleships, but equipped with a high quality shield emitter and a decent accompanyment of weaponry for defence if needed. It's special is point defence drones.
There are many more ships than this, but I was trying to get across that the game does a good job of providing reasonably diverse ships. The 'battle simulator' function is very much a 'just one more turn trying a different loadout'...ie it is very addictive to try a different assortment of weapons and 'hullmods' (modifcations to your hull to further specialize ships) and it has really made me suffer in my sleeping of recent ;)
I must of at least gotten out 40 hours of gameplay with this current alpha (0.7a) and many more hours with the previous release.
EDIT: I should add a bit of a warning; the current release does have a harsher learning curve then the previous release due to some new game mechanics that were added. It's very highly recommended you do the combat tutorial that is included; but even with this, you may find you have to restart a few times to get a feeling for the map screen. It is very much an alpha still and so things will definitely be getting better.
