Now that I've had some time to really dig into and play 0.7.1a, I feel like I'm ready to provide some feedback. Honestly, I don't have a whole lot. It comes down to feeling like everything is just a little "better". Quality of life improvements across the board, better balance, and the beginnings of a game universe that feels "alive". It's getting there. All the new features just serve to help fill out the world, and I think Alex's artistic vision (though I'm sure it has evolved much since he started this project) seems like it's coming together now.
AI officers make fleet ships much more useful, and there is less incentive now than there was before in my opinion to just optimize a flagship and do all the heavy lifting yourself. It's now pretty rewarding to get an actual coordinated fleet in. You can train officers for various roles or to pilot certain archetypes of ships effectively, and that's a great mechanic. The mission and communication board present now at ports seems like a pretty good implementation of something the game was going to need at some point, and it's perfectly effective. Very similar to the way it's handled in the "X" series. The modding community is already doing a great job with it too (notably SS+ unique bounties), and that's a good sign of what the vanilla game will have to offer. I would, however, like to see a feature on the campaign layer that allows me to target and hail fleets that I'm not actually "touching". The new graphic features (coronas, fleet trails, etc) are all excellent.
New hyperspace terrain adds a little bit of old world "high seas navigation" appeal to traveling between systems, and I think it's a good start. I'd like to see hyperspace storms have some minor visual indication that they're about to start, but that might just be my laziness talking. A little more variety in terrain and I think its there.
Criticisms / complaints are minor. Notably, with some of the changes to missile weapons, it's a little hard to tell now which ones are "endless" and which are ammo limited from the stats. You've got weapons like the Salamander which do not utilize an ammo "magazine", they work more like a regular ballistic weapon, and there is no "Reloaded / minute" stat, just the regular RoF stat "4.8 shots / minute" or what have you. On the other hand, you have missile weapons that have the "Reloaded / minute" stat, giving an indication of sustained fire. I recognize that's down to the distinction of whether a weapon has a magazine or not, but I've been playing the game long enough that I have a pretty good idea what weapons perform in what ways. To a newer player it may not be extremely clear what's what.
The only other thing that I feel still needs some attention is the intel screen. Particularly the map, but I recognize this is a known issue. Additionally, I have a "feeling" that there is a better way to handle filters for the log screen, though I don't have any useful suggestions on how so that's not terribly useful.
This was all pretty much stream of consciousness, so pardon any rambling. I'm sure I forgot some things, but I'll update as I continue to play.
