It looks cool! I'm gonna check it out when it releases.
From the screenshots on Steam, it seems to have a number of different mechanics from Starsector so I don't think it's "almost identical", it just has a top-down 2D ship system.
It seems to have a tech research tree, hexagonal ship building, more detailed resource use, possibly dialog skils (xenoculture insight?) and individual crew management. Seems like it's probably much smaller in scale too, with a focus on a single ship over a fleet that can hold several capitals.