I started playing Starsector in the release
before colonization was added. The addition of colonies mechanically was great, but for several releases never felt like it had any presence in the world; it was just a base for the player and eventually a massive economy 'win condition' by giving you essentially unlimited income and production.
Things were toned down a bit with balancing changes and the size cap to 6, but colonies still stuck out to me even more as ill-fitting after more and more story elements have been added into the game; you're more a part of the world and factions, but they didn't react in any way to the fact that you were setting up an independent polity of your own (and one that, for that matter, grows quickly in power and resources!).
The new Crisis system really feels like it's addressed that, and in a spectacular way. These aren't about slowing or hindering the player (rather the opposite, since it seems that most of them give you a way to get permanent buffs for your colony!), instead they're about integrating your colonies into the
story and achieving recognition from the existing factions.
This is exactly what colonies needed to feel natural.
So far I've played through Pirates, Pather, Tri-Tach, and Persean League crisis events.
I took Pirates the simple way- just defeated the attack head on. But knowing that I had other routes to deal with it (striking a deal with the station king? A deal with Kanta?) made this feel better than the prior pirate raid system did, which was much more endless.
Pathers felt like it had the highest stakes: this was the only one that can wipe a colony out? I started the Scythe of Orion quest and got the planetkiller as a backup; but then decided not to use it and took the fleets heads on. This was also great; in the prior release we only had the story option to give them the planetkiller to diffuse Pather presence, but now you can choose the climactic battle option if you feel ready for it.
Tri-Tach was the absolute best. It really punched up the feeling of options available; I love that the (best? out of many possible) answer is "teach them that if they mess with you, you'll mess back". It gave a strong reason to put together a small raiding fleet and blast in and disrupt industries on every TT market; and then pick up a deal from a position of strength.
As each of these happen, resolving it feels like you've earned permanent acknowledgement from the factions that
you are part of Sector politics now. No longer just some random pile of markets serving purely as a player base due to mechanically needing one, but fully integrated into and acknowledged by the story.
This doesn't feel like a minor release to me- it really expands on the past few releases of story involvement and progression.
Nice work.