I've been struggling with trying to balance the game, and getting a lot of feedback that it's too hard, too boring, or just too confusing. They often seem to contradict each other, and had to face a harsh reality, that there were just too many moving parts in a game that's still having its core gameplay loop figured out. I decided then, that the best thing to do is boil it down to just the basics and focus on that until it's fun.

In this latest update, the previous gameplay is moved into a "Campaign" mode (which is disabled at the moment but will be back soon), and a new "Tournament" mode has been added that's just pure combat in a classic auto-battler style. This will be the main focus of dev for a time, until the gameplay feels tight enough that I'm ready to begin expanding the Campaign mode again (which I still feel will be the core focus of the game at that time).

It's not all taking away though, as there's a lot to give in this release!

New features:

• Visual Spaceship tiles! This is to be considered placeholder programmer art for the moment, but I thought it would be nice to provide a more realistic outer view of your ship, so it's not just icons vs. icons.
• Hiring Crew - You can hire crew members of various professions, who level up with each fight and increase efficiency in a module they're assigned to.
• Module Upgrades - In the module panel of the store, you can now purchase permanent upgrades which will increase the stats of your modules.

I hope you enjoy this release, it's visually a much different game now, and the gameplay I think is a lot tighter. Next focus will be primarily on balancing the modules, and farther fleshing out the crew abilities (in addition to just increasing efficiency, they will also give bonuses to the module they're assigned).