I love that you're making such an effort to polish battles and combat but I feel like you're starting to tinker, not for the better, with something that's already very good.
With each new patch you're adding new combat mechanics and such but each is starting to feel less and less needed, and more like you're nitpicking because you've been looking at the same game for so long.
I suppose what i'm saying is, the combat is very well fleshed out while the rest of the actual game isn't at all. Right now its basically a combat simulator where you can acquire every ship, weapon, and upgrade in under a few hours, test them, then ask "now what?".
If you could take a step back for a month or two like so many of us loving players have between patches you'd see that the combat is beautiful and ready, but it needs the rest of the game.
Obviously you're not in a position to "take a step back for a month or two" but just try to put yourself in the consumers shoes. What we see is the dev "fixing" things that don't need it while putting off what we feel is really integral to making this a game.
I'm worried if your focus isn't renewed soon the development will take vastly more time then needed before it catches a glimpse of a trade system, more than one solar system, real factions, economy, real character progression, ect.
Hopefully you don't take this the wrong way, think of it as an intervention from one of your loving players.
(ps. I feel like a d*ck writing this but i'm just kinda bummed time and time again to see more of the same, changing a good combat system, and very little if any real meat in the patches.)