Man, bveen a while since I've felt engaged enough by a post to do a point by point. Here we go.
Progression: Point 1 I -heavily- disagree here. I find it already takes some time to get into the big boy ships, and taking in games years to move toward cruisers, let alone capitals, would be insane. Don't forget, ships getting lost in combat is normal, and if every single loss in combat of anything past frigate level was the price tag of a million or two, it would make basically any loss as cruiser or capital ship an instant reset. It's already an instant reset for basically every job. And let's not forget the increase in pay for bounties that would have to happen, and the proportional increase in trade contracts to keep things even. It just further make trade missions overpowered -and- put a game already at very minimal capacity for loss to even higher extremes. The whole game is balanced around the price of ships given how combat centric it is, to multiple these prices by a scale of 10 would be an insane destabilization.
Progression: Point 2 Commissions already locks a lot behind it for all practical purposes. The difference between getting an Aurora, a Medusa, and even something as simple as an Atlas with commission, is a night and say difference compared to without. And Commission itself isn't something that should be forced upon the player, especially with the long term consequences it can have on relations. Even getting military from contacts is hard RNG and too rare to be depended on. I have in some cases spent in games -months- looking for the proper set of weapons to equip to a capital, and see maybe one or two capitals in the open market in in game years. On the occasion I get cruisers, there's maybe one or two, with commissions holding 3 copies of the same cruisers. I'm estimating time if it isn't obvious but you get the point. commission is already a rewarding option and contacts take a long time to give building contracts, making commissions effectively required for fleet advancement would just be forcing a system that should be an option.
Progression: overall If I want a long con game of glacial development, I'll play Stellaris or replay Trails in the sky, Tales of Symphonia, or Pathfinder:kingmarker. I don't want Starsector to turn into a game where I spend weeks in real time to get to the end-game. I dont want it to take 5 minutes, but if it took 3 days of playing everyday 2 hours a day to get even a chance at a capital, I'd never play. Forgive me if I'm not skilled enough at this game to give you an exact time scale, but I think extending the progression any further would just push into the wrong direction. I admit some bias, as I'm a man who like replaying things. When I played guild Wars 2 I delete old toons and made new toons all the time to replay that progression, so I absolutely favor quicker build to slower development, but I dont think my perception is just bias.
Officers, point 1 I can't entirely disagree with the point made. Officers do seem to level in the scale the player does which -does- make officers grow very quickly. It does mean recycling new officers to adjust for fleet composition pre-colony stage is easier, or if you just dont want colonies(I haven't read skill changed part 2 yet so don't know the effects there). As for numbers, it only really matters heavily in late-game super bounties, since the RC(14, I think) update made those fleets with more than maybe 3-4 officers over the player maximum limited to level 9 and 10 bounties(I might be misremembering numbers slightly, but you get the idea). Even then colonies are already very powerful, I dont think making them even stronger is the wisest idea.
Officers, point 2 I'm amazed you enjoy aggressive officers. I find them almost reckless and stick strictly to steady officers. Maybe I need to branch out but.....I'm not sure. Then again I would -not- want an aggressive officer on a Sunder or any low tech burn drive ships(the upcoming update might change the latter but that's another subject). I guess the AI is more diverse than I thought.
Interface, part 1 Can I ask for an example? I'm drawing a blank on what information you're talking about. There is a bar specifically to see the length of time for the ship systems. Range I'll give you but that only applies to a slim few abilities like the Omen/Shade and the Doom's mines. It's a bit specific to alter the UI for. The weapon range one would be nice, though the way they get altered via things like skills might make that difficult, though perhaps I'm speaking out place there.
Alt Key movement Okay this one I dont know what you're talking about. Is there -another- system I just didn't know about until now? The last one was just me never thinking to do something(admittedly something stupid but w/e), this sounds like internal files. Not that I can do anything, Alt being a button would indeed risk a few things on Windows.
Firing Admins Yeah, that one isn't clear. You go to the "command" screen(default D, check the bottom left buttons, it's there do) and see "Manage administrators"(default w) from that first tab. It is a bit unclear, though I really don't know any other place to put it so I can only complain so much.
Map controls Wait what? but clicking on a star does quickly give you access to the start map. Holding left click opens a drop menu that includes "show star map" as option 1. I routinely hit that button accidentally. I'm a little baffled you have trouble with that. The button to go back is a visible button at the top left of the map as well. Maybe it's a bit small and easy to miss, but thats being charitable. Maybe put them on the bottom right so -all- map controls at below and easier to find? Honestly sounds like it isn't a bad idea.
Extra skill shortcuts Interesting idea. Consider developing this further for the suggestions section of the forums, and I hope moders see this suggestions I think it's interesting. I know a lot of modern games have saved skill builds, it be nice to have.
Well that's my thoughts on the matter. I hope you enjoy the game man, it's absolutely worth it and the faster progression does mean the replay value for new styles of contact development and fleet composition style every game just expands. It's not an easy game to learn, especially the combat, but it's rewarding once you "get" it, and nowhere near something like Crusader Kings 2 or anything.
