I agree that a lot of ships look similar, another thing to consider is that in space there is no reason ships need to look like fighters, they can be any shape possible because there is no real friction to overcome. So use all three dimensions/axis when designing ships.
1) I personally am not a fan of timed quests, at least when the quests were tightly timed, it still could be possible to "trigger" the event by doing something, such as using the sun device on the Chmmr home world or something like that. 2) I liked and disliked the probes, once you figured out how to beat them they became a steady source of income, perhaps an option to turn them off, but I did like the discovery of where they come from. 3) I like the harder combat, in as
This game is one of the main reasons I am into computers. I still play it and I still talk about it.