Wow you weren't kidding when you said it was a big chunk of new data... Great stuff! I just bought the game days ago... just enough time to play all the missions and WHAM massive update. Lucky me...
Everything seems to work fine for now, I am specifically really enjoying the upgrade/customizing part of the game (I am a real sucker for that kind of stuff). Though one thing that I would like to see is a possibility to fly a ship from my fleet just for fun to check out what the improvements, new weapons, new configurations etc. do... On other more arcadish games I have played (Escape Velocity comes to mind) you could just leave the station to test out new weapons or upgrades, or new ships. Right now, as far as I know, you have to find someone to fight in order to check stuff out which is both time consuming and potentially dangerous... Testing out new ship layouts before going to battle is something I would very much enjoy...
Maybe I am missing something and you can actually do this, but I haven't figured it out yet..
Anyway... i don't want to sound too critical I am aware it's only an alpha and I do think the game is really shaping up to be a really good, in depth, replayable, immersive game. Something that is really missing from space combat games... I just wanted to give my two cents. Keep up the good work!