I only have about 20 hours into the game, so I'm a newbie. But that's the point. I also want to make clear my suggestion/complaint has absolutely nothing to do with the mechanics or difficulty of the game, only the pacing of the introduction.
I played the tutorials. Started a new game. Picked "Easy" as it was recommended for first-time players and chose to do the campaign tutorial as well.
I picked my ship and a support ship. I read their descriptions, flavor texts, statistics, weapon groups etc. I had a pretty good understanding of my fleet.
The second or third mission in the game gave me a third ship, a transport ship. I was excited. But in the very same mission less than 30 minutes into the game I was given five more ships. My fleet had gone from two ships to eight ships in a matter of minutes. Once again I read all the descriptions and statistics, but naturally I couldn't really remember which was which anymore. The next mission had me outfit all of them with weapons, so now I had about 40 new weapons to keep track of as well.
The problem wasn't the difficulty, I could handle the fights with ease. But I didn't know what was happening anymore. I didn't know which weapon combinations were working and which ones weren't. I wasn't even sure which of the ships were doing the heavy lifting, even though I had obviously experienced a power spike.
The reason games typically ease players in isn't just to smooth out the difficulty curve, it's to keep them invested. An RTS game starts simple and introduces new units with each mission. A shooter game doesn't just dump an entire arsenal to the player right from the start, they're slowly introduced so the player gets an opportunity to experiement with each and understands how or why he's becoming more powerful.
Now if I was an experienced player this obviously wouldn't be an issue, as I would already be familiar with the ships and which weapons worked well with them. But an experienced player is unlikely to pick "Easy" and then choose to do the tutorial too. On the other hand this is how most new players are introduced to the game.
What I ended up doing was I sold all these aforementioned ships, and started buying new ships one at a time to fill whatever need I had once I got the credits. I could guess from the exchange rates that this was not an optimal way to play the game, but it was a way to keep me invested. Now it's my fleet, put together piece by piece and each for a purpose I thought of. It's undoubtedly far from perfect as I have no clue what I'm doing, but at least I know what the plan is. I don't feel like I was just dumped a bunch of ships and told to go watch the fireworks anymore.
I have no complaints about the general mechanics or the amount of customizability in the game. All that stuff is great. I just don't think the campaign tutorial is paced very well, because I can see a lot of players simply losing interest when the amount of variables at play all of a sudden skyrockets. A new player is already just learning the ropes, and suddenly they're given way too many things to keep track of before they're even fully comfortable with the previous ships, let alone all the UI and strategy of the game. It's easy to just stop caring. A more gradual build-up would also foster a more personal commitment to each ship, as the player gets to see first hand what each new addition brings to the table without it being drowned out into a tidal wave of changes.
Anyway, this post turned out longer than I expected, but I hope it could somehow be helpful if the early game is ever restructured in a future release. I'm already past the point where any of this affects me anymore, so I really only typed this up to help make the game better for all those who come after me.
