After replaying it quite a while after I initially made that review, I would no longer recommend it. Every single problem save for the lag is still there, nothing was improved at all.
When I initially wrote it, I hoped it would, but alas.
It's still not a bad game per se, but it just isn't fun, it's just a slog. You're forced to do plenty of too easy missions just to get the meager ressources for even an attempt at the harder ones, which you'll probably fail for the reasons below, then it's back to the start.

---- original review:

Having played this for quite a while now, I'd recommend it, but it has some problems.

You see, at the start, it's pretty fun. You start ou small, get better stuff, get bigger missions, all great. But as soon as you go above "hard" missions, they jump from "medium" (what hard really is) to "what in the living f*ck is this, f*ck this game".

I think the main issue is that you have nothing that really works against shields. Shields are equipments many thoughter enemies have that reflect any kind of attack. They come in two variants: One is active as soon as they spotted you, which is fine, it just means if you have been spotted, you better run because forget fighting back, hide until they go back to neutral. The other variant is always on.
Now, there ARE ways to kill shields. There are two types of tools against them, one just turns them off and one inverts them so their own shots get reflected inwards, which is pretty sweet. The problem lies in the numbers. Even "high capacity" variants of those tools come with just 5 uses, and the time when you actually encounter those enemies, they're on huge ships with many guards meaning those 5 uses are gone pretty quickly with still plenty of shielded enemies around. (there are a few other ways, like blowing out a window next to them, but they aren't really applicable most of the time and means you also lose everything the guard holds, like keys)

There are two types of enemies, common and boss. that just means the boss ones got slightly better equipment and are a fifth in number. mostly just those got shields, but for the highest level difficulty missions I've seen yet, there are many where every enemy type has shields (and proximity sensors and so on).
Combine that with a pretty short time limit, armor (which you can only ever defeat once you unlocked armor piercing weapons, which is btw way too late, before that you have to just not do any of those missions), huge ships and plenty of guards and it's becoming pretty much impossible.

Some tools are rechargeable, which means they get filled up when you visit a friendly station. The one time I finished off a ship full of shields, I had a high capacity rechargeable, and pretty much killed 5 enemies, went to the nearest station, came back, killed 5 more.. took tons of time and is not what I'd call fun)

Either the game should make it easier to get self-recharging tools (which you only see very rarely, I think I only saw them in special "deflector missions" which are sepparate from the rest), vastly increase the limit of uses (high capacity should be 20 uses minimum) or give us weapons that can bypass shields. You could go the way plenty of scifi went and only make lower speed weapons penetrate, like melee or even just slow types of melee.

Also, the time limit should be expanded or at least being spotted should not reduce it even more so you could rambo through to the captain, because in 9/10 missions with time limit, I was either caught or had to abandon the mission incomplete.

And before someone says to just not do such missions: you get 5 missions to chose from, maybe 6. if 3 of those have shields and/or time limits, you're stuck with some "medium" and "hard" ones that are actually a piece of cake and pretty easy.

Each time you get spaced, which means enemies killed you and throw you out the airlock, which is a nice idea in and on itself because it's a middle way between permadeath and just restarting at a checkpoint, the amount of time you can survive outside decreases. Would be fine if it was just for that mission, but it's permanent and I know of no way to increase it again, which means by the time you got all the equipment to tackle harder ships, being spaced once or twice, which will happen far easier, means you're dead.

Restarting at the start of the ship, maybe even through the menu, the way it is with deflector missions would be great. Some times you have really bad luck with the layout and, for example, a group of five enemies right in front of your entry point. Some times you manage to blow up part of a ship which makes it impossible for you to go further into it. Both cases mean you just have to abort the mission, which is no fun.

Give a faster way to travel through the huge ships. maybe teleporters unlocked when you reach them. it's really frustrating having to wander through the whole ship again just because you forgot a guy or something.

Last but not least, lower the difficulty of personal missions. with like 20 characters, I survived that maybe once.

to recap, ways to improve the game:
- weapons against shields or at least higher capacity or recharging for tools
- more self-recharging tools, period. One deflector mission had just glitch trap and a swapping teleporter (teleports you to where the enemy was and the enemy where you were) and I had a blast, setting the trap, standing on it and swapping with an enemy. But with the limited number of tools you can take with you this is not possible to really use without self-recharging tools.
- quicker way to get armor piercing
- longer time limit or less missions that have one
- a way to "heal" yourself to withstand space longer again
- add teleporters
- lower difficulty level for personal missions (if all of the above get implemented that may not be neccessary)
- a way to restart a ship, reroll it's layout

some additional points:
- fix the memory leak or whatever is responsible for the game getting sluggish after some time running. At several points it was nearly as slow as while targetting.
- Add a cheap ship type, like $5 or so, that would be a dinghy to your normal ship with which you could ram through windows if you go at them at full spead, sacrificing it but being able to start the ship where you rammed in it. could maybe alert the ship to make it not too easy. [note, maybe there is such a ship, I haven't unlocked all yet]
- add some more options for those wanting to ghost. like a hack tool that would hack access hatches to air ducts with shich you could bypass enemies. a way to lure enemies to your trap without causing alarm. light switches or fuses you could turn off so enemies would not see as far. always just cloaking or teleporting is boring and costs a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.
- after the enemy spotted you, followed you and lost your trail, make them return to where they were. otherwise you some times get 8 enemies in a single spot you need to go through
- with how much emphasis there is on teleporting, teleporting grenade launchers should be included. Or at least some variety, like bouncing ones that you could (better) shoot around corners. as it is, grenade launchers are pretty useless, they alert everyone (shields go up) and often you're in line of sight of you shoot them

After replaying it quite a while after I initially made that review, I would no longer recommend it. Every single problem save for the lag is still there, nothing was improved at all. When I initially wrote it, I hoped it would, but alas. It's still not a bad game per se, but it just isn't fun, it's just a slog. You're forced to do plenty of too easy missions just to get the meager ressources for even an attempt at the harder ones, which you'll probably fail for the reasons below, then it's back to the start. ---- original review: Having played this for quite a while now, I'd recommend it, but it has some problems. You see, at the start, it's pretty fun. You start ou small, get better stuff, get bigger missions, all great. But as soon as you go above "hard" missions, they jump from "medium" (what hard really is) to "what in the living f*ck is this, f*ck this game". I think the main issue is that you have nothing that really works against shields. Shields are equipments many thoughter enemies have that reflect any kind of attack. They come in two variants: One is active as soon as they spotted you, which is fine, it just means if you have been spotted, you better run because forget fighting back, hide until they go back to neutral. The other variant is always on. Now, there ARE ways to kill shields. There are two types of tools against them, one just turns them off and one inverts them so their own shots get reflected inwards, which is pretty sweet. The problem lies in the numbers. Even "high capacity" variants of those tools come with just 5 uses, and the time when you actually encounter those enemies, they're on huge ships with many guards meaning those 5 uses are gone pretty quickly with still plenty of shielded enemies around. (there are a few other ways, like blowing out a window next to them, but they aren't really applicable most of the time and means you also lose everything the guard holds, like keys) There are two types of enemies, common and boss. that just means the boss ones got slightly better equipment and are a fifth in number. mostly just those got shields, but for the highest level difficulty missions I've seen yet, there are many where every enemy type has shields (and proximity sensors and so on). Combine that with a pretty short time limit, armor (which you can only ever defeat once you unlocked armor piercing weapons, which is btw way too late, before that you have to just not do any of those missions), huge ships and plenty of guards and it's becoming pretty much impossible. Some tools are rechargeable, which means they get filled up when you visit a friendly station. The one time I finished off a ship full of shields, I had a high capacity rechargeable, and pretty much killed 5 enemies, went to the nearest station, came back, killed 5 more.. took tons of time and is not what I'd call fun) Either the game should make it easier to get self-recharging tools (which you only see very rarely, I think I only saw them in special "deflector missions" which are sepparate from the rest), vastly increase the limit of uses (high capacity should be 20 uses minimum) or give us weapons that can bypass shields. You could go the way plenty of scifi went and only make lower speed weapons penetrate, like melee or even just slow types of melee. Also, the time limit should be expanded or at least being spotted should not reduce it even more so you could rambo through to the captain, because in 9/10 missions with time limit, I was either caught or had to abandon the mission incomplete. And before someone says to just not do such missions: you get 5 missions to chose from, maybe 6. if 3 of those have shields and/or time limits, you're stuck with some "medium" and "hard" ones that are actually a piece of cake and pretty easy. Each time you get spaced, which means enemies killed you and throw you out the airlock, which is a nice idea in and on itself because it's a middle way between permadeath and just restarting at a checkpoint, the amount of time you can survive outside decreases. Would be fine if it was just for that mission, but it's permanent and I know of no way to increase it again, which means by the time you got all the equipment to tackle harder ships, being spaced once or twice, which will happen far easier, means you're dead. Restarting at the start of the ship, maybe even through the menu, the way it is with deflector missions would be great. Some times you have really bad luck with the layout and, for example, a group of five enemies right in front of your entry point. Some times you manage to blow up part of a ship which makes it impossible for you to go further into it. Both cases mean you just have to abort the mission, which is no fun. Give a faster way to travel through the huge ships. maybe teleporters unlocked when you reach them. it's really frustrating having to wander through the whole ship again just because you forgot a guy or something. Last but not least, lower the difficulty of personal missions. with like 20 characters, I survived that maybe once. to recap, ways to improve the game: - weapons against shields or at least higher capacity or recharging for tools - more self-recharging tools, period. One deflector mission had just glitch trap and a swapping teleporter (teleports you to where the enemy was and the enemy where you were) and I had a blast, setting the trap, standing on it and swapping with an enemy. But with the limited number of tools you can take with you this is not possible to really use without self-recharging tools. - quicker way to get armor piercing - longer time limit or less missions that have one - a way to "heal" yourself to withstand space longer again - add teleporters - lower difficulty level for personal missions (if all of the above get implemented that may not be neccessary) - a way to restart a ship, reroll it's layout some additional points: - fix the memory leak or whatever is responsible for the game getting sluggish after some time running. At several points it was nearly as slow as while targetting. - Add a cheap ship type, like $5 or so, that would be a dinghy to your normal ship with which you could ram through windows if you go at them at full spead, sacrificing it but being able to start the ship where you rammed in it. could maybe alert the ship to make it not too easy. [note, maybe there is such a ship, I haven't unlocked all yet] - add some more options for those wanting to ghost. like a hack tool that would hack access hatches to air ducts with shich you could bypass enemies. a way to lure enemies to your trap without causing alarm. light switches or fuses you could turn off so enemies would not see as far. always just cloaking or teleporting is boring and costs a shitton. - after the enemy spotted you, followed you and lost your trail, make them return to where they were. otherwise you some times get 8 enemies in a single spot you need to go through - with how much emphasis there is on teleporting, teleporting grenade launchers should be included. Or at least some variety, like bouncing ones that you could (better) shoot around corners. as it is, grenade launchers are pretty useless, they alert everyone (shields go up) and often you're in line of sight of you shoot them