For example the new features, planet surveying and ship recovery/salvage. I get it, gotta give the player something else to do besides just constantly fighting. An alternative way of earning XP and money. Good idea in principle. Thing is, the combat path involves actual gameplay, whereas surveying and salvaging is just clicking through menus. If you choose to be a prospector who avoids combat and goes around scanning things, you remove the interesting part of SS's gameplay and you're left with nothing but the laggy and tedious overworld map navigation punctuated by occasionally clicking through a menu. As far as I can tell those features are a complete waste of everyone's time, the dev's as well as the players'. And sure, you can say "you don't have to do it". That's true, but the development time used to implement these things could have been used to do something more worthwhile instead.
From what you're saying Starsector might not be for you. I think it was always intended to be mainly a top-down tactical sim, not any kind of "space shooter". Personally, I think .8 is one of the best updates yet, but it does have a few issues with balance at this time.
A lot of the new exploration seems like a placeholder for when outposts get in the game - right now they just give you money, but in the future, the player will be able to take a more active role exploiting them. This probably means less surveying a planet and running to the next and more defending your planets and trade routes from pirates.
That isn't something that will excite someone looking for a space shooter, but for me, it's a big deal. You say it's just "clicking through menus" but it gives the player incentive to get into fights - the frontiers have dangerous stuff in them that will attack you, but also rewards. I think the big problem is there are balance issues with payouts for surveying and salvage right now along with sustained burn being too good.
Speaking of the overworld map, that's actually been made worse as well. I don't think I'm alone in hating how laggy and rubberbandy it feels. Instead of working on that and making it more responsive, the dev introduced Sustained Burn. The speed bonus from this is so good that it's basically mandatory to use it, and it makes your fleet feel even more laggy and unresponsive than before. And it stops you for a couple seconds as it activates. Wanna go fast? You gotta wait for that! Same thing with the Active Sensor Burst. Wanna know what's around you? Better stop and wait! So two more things for you to click on that will annoy you every single time you do.
Every new feature seems to just be an item in a menu somewhere or a button to click. While I appreciate the complexity that goes on behind the scenes, clicking menu options and buttons isn't exactly engaging gameplay.
Well if you're just looking for a space shooter you won't appreciate the strategic game. I guess it can just look like boring buttons to click. But for me, I love the cat and mouse game that the transponder/sensor ping/go dark/emergency/sustained burn create. I just did an assassination mission where I went dark in a ring system close to my target and waited weeks for the patrols to clear and a good moment to strike - I had to reload that fight like 10 times, but when I eventually won it felt amazing. The strategic context was a big part of that, there's no way to get it without having different options that have drawbacks.
You mentioned not liking CR earlier and I have to say I love it. Another thing that made the fight so memorable was how out of shape my ships were at the end of the battle - even my cruiser flagship was suffering from minor malfunctions by the end. It gives fights a real sense of wear and tear/exhaustion. CR serves a similar role to morale and exhaustion in a Total War game and I really appreciate the way it's done in Starsector.
On a final note, you know the game still has missions right? If you don't like the campaign you can just play those, there's nothing wrong with that. I know I enjoy doing missions.
