I'm excited about story points, it definitely brings that 'smoothness' to the few rough spots here and there and it's an investment in a persistent experience that's unique to each playthrough. There's a lot to be said here, but all of it is good. As a fan of the FATE game systems, where players get to craft their stories by using 'perks' which are freeform attributes people attach to their character, and then use FATE points to make that perk have outstanding effects which are entirely contextual, i appreciate this weird mesh of 'hard' gameplay and 'soft' storytelling. However, i will say that maybe changing the name somewhat to reflect more their actual in-game-mechanics altering effects might help. "Starfarer Points"?
About the skills system... eh. The point of choice paralysis was a real issue, and that got entirely solved. A secondary problem was that of how it felt you always could get just 90% of the skills you wanted, three-four points just out of reach that made the 'build' feel flawed. It isn't about getting a 'perfect' build per se, it's about either allowing the 100% or make it so there can be no sense in chasing that 'perfect' build since there never are enough skill points to get what you want, just 50-60%ish. I'm not sure how this fares now, since i need to see the actual layout before making a comment, but i can see a flaw in 'getting to the last tier, just so i can pick the other 2nd tier skill' which may lead to a feeling of needing to 'waste' skill points to unlock the other thing you want. There's also something to be said about how the game may feel slightly less in-depth, but in full retrospect, very few skills you only took 'a level or two of', so i guess clumping all the effects together may make some sense (and i assume some were shuffled around too or new ones instated). I'm also glad about reassigning skillpoints, however the 'only some can be reassigned' kind of feels a bit like cheaping out. I understand why, but it feels more like under-the-hood issues than actual user experience issues. (also, if those are say tier 2-3 skills, would that prevent you from rolling back the entire tree? or will you just have a random skill in an empty tree)
It's also interesting how effect scaling and forcing downscaling in ship numbers which may offer a better choice than slapping extra ships to the tailend of the roster may loosen up the tension felt on the hard 30 ship cap, which so far is only really kept in check by supply/fuel usage and nothing else. However, this comes with the caveat that the gameplay experience itself has been balanced around these smaller numbers that you are tempted to deploy, and that we're not fighting enormous ship blobs in quick succession.
Moving on to 'building-in hullmods'. Well, uh. I need to see a guy about a Conquest. But i assume the 2 limit is WITH whatever it comes on included by default right?
Bonus experience sounds really great as a mechanic but it'll take a lot of interface and general gameplay communication to say that 'hey, this isn't just a hullmod upgrade, it's also a 75% bonus xp booster'. And i guess the 'quantity of experience for which it's boosted' stacks? Or else we'd end up in the 'i get the 100% xp boost going right now, so i'm going to wait out until i get another experience boost off of something'. I'm not super sure calling it percentages helps explain the 'quantity' it's valid for either. Heh, maybe just because i didn't quite get it in one sitting /is/ the problem.
Anywho.. remnant and derelict ships? Guess it was somewhat expected, also especially since they wouldn't really be fully player flyable (or configurable if i got that right?)