I'm nervous about abilities.
The four in the blog post look good, but I echo Mendonca's caution about "gilding the lily". My gut feeling is that it would be very easy to overdo it.
We'll see, I suppose. I'll just say that I'm reticent to add more abilities "just because".
So glad burn speed is becoming less extreme. How is Navigation skill going to be reworked? Is it still going to give Frigates a much larger boost or will it too be smoothed over?
Right now, it's inverted - +5 to cap, +4 to cruisers, +3 to destroyers, and +2 to frigates at level 10. This evens all the classes out at burn 12 (with civilians still lagging 1 burn behind).
Still feels like it might be a bit strong, though. Reducing it to 4/3/2/1 might feel better.
Also, will tug mechanics remain the same? Granting 1 Burn Speed to the slowest ship?
Yep.
On AI "distress beacon" behavior: there could be alert status stages built into transponders. Status would depend on a fleet's situation. It should probably be automated but I think having the transponder be as versatile as possible is important.
Oh, neat idea! Hmm. The issue would be if it was desirable for a distress beacon to have extra-long range. Which it seems like it might be.
By the way, the Emergency Burn's ship art is certainly abstract but it looks like a mix of a Mon Calamari Cruiser and an Odyssey.
... now that you mention it, an "It's a Trap" ability seems like it's pretty much a requirement. Doesn't even matter what it does.