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That's the problem. If we simply change controls to make your ship just follow the mouse it will really turn all the work we've put in combat system so far into a mindless shooter like countless other casual space games...

I think you underestimate your own combat system.  There is still inertia and tracking speeds, plus special modules, or whatever you are calling the modules that fit in the numbered slots (I'm not sure what sorts of things you still were thinking of adding, perhaps webifiers, ECM, tracking disrupters?).  Additionally, unless I'm wrong, some weapons have damage which falls off with range.  Consider that your game already has much more sophisticated combat than say, Diablo (of course that is contingent on there being more special ability modules).  A good example of a game that pulls this off with mouse controlling rotation quite successfully is http://ringrunner.net/ .  (A related question, are there damage types?  It's always good to have damage types.)

So, I'm getting used to it, definitely won't stop me from playing and enjoying the game, but making things more difficult by muddling your control scheme seems like the wrong way to go.  If you let the combat stand on it's own I have no doubt it'll hold up.

Unfortunately it seems to occur very sporadically.  I was playing a game last night in which it didn't seem to happen at all.  Other times I've been completely unable to kill ships.  My only guess is that it might have something to do with the way shields are taken down and re-established.  I'm pretty sure it has never happened before I've taken the shields of a particular ship down completely at least once (i.e. never when the ship had full hull). 

To be clear, I can't be sure the memory leak is UI related, but it certainly seems that way (I have not tried to play for an extended period of time without opening the inventory screens), the slowness seems to affect the inventory screen much more strongly than any other.

I'd just like to second this suggestion.  Not having the mouse be able to control rotation in some manner feels rather awkward.  I think I can get used to it, but if I were you guys I'd make this a priority before you hit Steam, I have a bad feeling the current control scheme might really piss some people off.  I do think the ship combat itself is really nice though!

Hello all.  I have been following this game since it was announced (I think), but have finally bought the alpha yesterday.  I must say, so far I am extremely impressed.  With extensive bug fixing and performance improvements this game would ALREADY seem like a finished product, so it is very exciting to hear even MORE features are on the way.  I've been waiting for something like this for years, for some reason makers of "space games" are very resistant to adding the kind of RPG depth that VoidExpanse has.  The only complaint I have with the game after three or four hours of playing is that ship control can feel rather awkward, I really think there is going to have to be some way of controlling rotation with the mouse.

Anyway, some other projects which have been greenlit and were rather far in development have imploded after failing to reach their kickstarter goals (I remember http://www.skyjackergame.com/ which had a pretty nice demo, and would have had options about what sort of flight model to use, a very impressive feature considering my recent experience with Elite Dangerous), so I hope the devs will stick with it even if their IndieGoGo project does not reach it's goal.  Happy to have done my part though (do purchases through the AtomicTorch site show up on IndieGoGo?  I'm guessing not).  Steam has been publishing some real crap lately, so if this game does not get on greenlight it will be absolutely criminal!

Looking forward to many more hours of playing this.

I'm also experiencing similar strangeness with damange of enemy ships.  At some point my weapons no longer seem to damage them, but then their shields recharge, I bring them back down, and I kill them.  I'm not 100% sure if it is some game mechanic that I'm not understanding, but it certainly seems like a bug.

I've experienced the same problem with a corrupted save.  Also experiencing the memory leak, it most heavily affects the UI.