A very good idea how you choose your 'character' skills in RPG style.
Didn't play much yet, but like what I saw.

I have to watch many videos and learn, it looks like :)
The integrated manual is brilliant.

I'm glad you liked character creation part, it was supposed to be more than just numbers.

Gamepedia and in-game tutorials are something we're proud of. It's easy to use and no need to go to YouTube in search of tutorials, although we do have all those tutorials on YouTube too. :)

I am not there yet, but can you later make up your own laws and politics for the system?

It would be great to create some evil pirate empire where everything is legal except maybe killing each other :)

Irritatingly enough, no. I still get a warning that plasma rifles are illegal in Concord territory. That said, so far no one has fined me, attempted to confiscate them or simply refused to buy them, so that point might be moot.

As far as the evil pirate empire goes, rarely have I boarded enemy vessels with such zest and vigour. Half my fleet is stolen, and the ships that aren't were forged from the scrapped remains of whatever else I boarded. 10/10 ARRRR!s, would pillage my way across the stars again.

Yes, I noticed that too. You can collect and sell anything so far.

I only managed to get a Gunboat with level 4, like the boarding and related perk. :)
Much better than in SPG2 with hacking to reduce the enemy crew or some bio-torpedo.
And couldn't even reuse it because it was too damaged and we didn't have the material. Still, a good price to sell it.

For the record:
Anomalies -> Scan
Derelict -> Salvage
Artefacts -> Scan

Next I need to skill a bit, drifting about and do jobs. The mysterious signals are good but don't yield much.

I random get these "He is getting away!" "10 9 8 7 6 5 ... 1" "Mission failed do you want to try again?" and then reload from last autosave.

Unfortunately every skill is level locked. I would really like to capture bigger ships than Corvette class but may need the third rank in Warfare for troops. That is locked at level 8.
Already got diplomacy 3 to open more dialogue :)
And work on Merchant perks...

random mission fail like here (20min+): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_eLsBEldCk

p.s. that random mission failure seems to have stopped now ^^ I just played on and continued the campaign a bit.
Really cool with your own station and diplomacy with other factions.

Do not hesitate to post any observations you have, or what you like or dislike. We need feedback to make the game better in the upcoming updates. Of course, we may not be able to change some technically demanding thing, but there are things that can be improved.

I think the destruction missions could use a second balance pass. These tend to be abnormally hard, especially on the higher levels, since you're facing not only a pretty sizeable opposing fleet, but also huge number of defense installations.

I've solved the issue by bringing (and losing the biggest part of!) a warfleet, along with cloaking and boosting out of the cloud, but the incoming damage makes the Hunt: Warmaster missions (which pay way better and as such, would be rated as more difficult?) blush in comparison. To add insult to injury, you need to clear every single target for the mission to be flagged as completed, including several wrecks.

Also, the "Fire at Will" command seems to blissfully ignore the defense installations. They can't be targeted with skills, at least not the Marauder tree ones, either.

That said, I'm having a blast. Best purchase so far for me this year.

P.S.: Is there a hard counter to biometric shielding on target ships, or are those completely off-limit for capturing?

Thank you for the feedback, I'll forward it to the team so they can check the balance on that mission type and defense installations.
I'm glad to hear you like the game, I hopr we won't dissapoint in the future. Also, new patch should be available on Galaxy.

I'll check for Biometric, because I'm not 100% sure.

It's a bit different game. At start, aside from better graphics and new GUI, you won't be able to tell the difference. But later, when you start fleet construction and management, territory expansion, HQ upgrades... It's a whole another story. :)

Fly safe captain!

I really enjoy it.

Didn't research a single ship, built two gunboats to progress the campaign, but pirated way over a hundred so far :)

My current Dreadnought is the best I got and have it for a long time. We managed to conquer nearly all the places that were hostile anyway. My fleet exists of some older Cruisers and until recently even one of the first Destroyers I caputed, next time I build a museums fleet ^^

You can then research and build the ships of foreign factions yourself!

I only now discovered diplomacy and that you get quests from the other Amassadors to kill 10 Reverent ships for example (given I wouldn't have wiped them out already). You can make trade deals as well or pay for boni depending on the foreign faction like 25% faster ship building for a few month for a price (given you have a good standing).

Social skills matter in the campaign like with hacking 2 you could steal the schematics instead of paying for them.

Some perks can only be learned by doing like the Pirate Lord (capture 80 ships and pillage 250 loot I think).

For all the mechanics this game is really something.