Other neat things I didn't take a picture of -
Obviously, as you guys all know, the galaxy is now unlimited. There are uncounted solar systems, each with their own collection of planets. SVs can warp around within the confines of a solar system, but you need a CV to do interstellar jumps.
The galactic map now has "territory," that is, you can see the spheres of influence of the various npc factions. Systems within Zirax space will have a heavy Zirax presence, same for the Kriel Empire, Polaris, The Traders Guild, etc. Stars in unaffiliated space are largely devoid of competing NPCs except for the occasional low grade trading station. Warping to a star puts you right up against the star, and you'll have to do one more in-system warp to get to an orbit sector - and you can't build bases at the star itself.
There are now sectors that are literally completely empty space. No asteroids, no NPC bases, nothing. Good place to hide a player base maybe?
The "Loading..." screen when doing a warp jump has been done away with. Now, warping has an in-engine cinematic star-warsy hyperdrive streaky-star effect that looks pretty cool, and it much more immersively disguises loading the new playfield.
As I said, teleporters are now a vanilla thing, and can teleport to any other teleporter via menu system. CV teleporters are limited only to the current sector (meaning space and planet surface, you can teleport down to the surface and up to space but not from one orbit to another orbit or further)... base teleporters can reach any teleporter within 30 light years, so potentially you could have a string of bases that will let you teleport from star system to star system to star system, working your way across the galaxy. Also, if you're friendly to an NPC faction, you can teleport to any ship or station of theirs you have "discovered." But be warned, teleporting to an NPC ship is a bad idea. They keep their shields up all the time, and you can't teleport back out while the shields are up. And if that ship is moving, you will fall out.
The in-game chat system is MUCH improved.
I don't know when they added this, but there is now an Epic EM Pulse Rifle. It uses laser rifle ammo, and is better than assault rifles, pulse rifles, or laser rifles.
Planets with multiple moons (particularly Gas Giants) now have separate sector playfields for each moon.
Shields greatly improve the survivability of any CV, SV, or HV, but you cannot dock, warp, teleport, repair, or add blocks to any vessel that has its shields raised. And they're super power thirsty to have raised, and they refill their HP by using pentaxid.
NPC bases can now offer "station services" which shows up as a tab on your ship's control panel. They can charge credits to instantly repair your ship to its repair template, sell you ship ammo (directly into your ammo box), sell you oxygen, promethium fuel, or pentaxid fuel. There's actually a vanilla use for credits now! Repairing is SO convenient and instant!
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Not so neat things -
Destroying the zirax drone base no longer permanently stops drone attacks. When the base regenerates, the attacks resume.
Orbital Trading Posts are completely immune to player weapons fire. I tried going into zirax territory to raid a trading station like it was a POI. There was literally nothing I could do to harm the base, even with ship turrets. But on the plus side, the trading station sent out an SOS that caused two Zirax corvettes to warp in and attack me, and they were decent salvage.
Some wandering NPC ships are buggy. If you attack them, they still do the "I'm holding still oh wait now I'm 4km away" thing. And sometimes that sudden position change can be 20km or more.
You still can't get up and walk around in a moving CV.
The way the game decides where your character pops out of the cockpit when you exit a ship has changed, and this has caused some "stuck in geometry" problems.
Things I've heard but not tested yet -
Apparently, I've heard something about SVs being allowed to use minigun turrets now? I need to check into that. It would make it a lot less dicey to park an SV outside a drone base.
