Wow, thanks for all the detailed feedback!
We'll look into the bugs like the control lockouts and desyncs. Long term we do plan to dig into optimization, but probably not a high priority until we are close to the steam demo release (unless the stability/framerate starts to become a serious issue).
We can see about adding some heads up display information for the pilot so they can see the force of the turn is being applied, as well as an indicator for the brakes.
We can add more missiles to enemies, one type used to always have them but now only elite versions get them, so we may adjust and give those long range missiles to a basic enemy instead. Those ones are fun to dodge, they show a circle like for the nuke. We also plan to add more things for the pilot to need to dodge...
Understood on the loot selection, we might add other spots for it to be accessible from so there is an option for who can choose it based on availability. We do want players to move around the ship though and not just sit at a gun the whole time, since that's not as fun, so we are also thinking of ways to have other things to do around the ship that would make getting up from a gun more worthwhile.
We can add further tooltips to explain the healthbars. They used to explicitly say what they were, but it was a little clunky looking. Perhaps a tooltip at the beginning + can be seen from the pause menu overlayed on the UI could help.
We've waffled on what the railgun should be able to do...moving it to other spots does make it into a blinder, which is not ideal, so we thought about removing the ability to move it around (it has a limited sight range, so requires coordination between the pilot and railgunner + possibly tractor beam to nail a shot - this limited sight range is rougher in different positions). Having some kind of animation to fold it away when not mounted could be cool, and lets its positioning be more versatile, but not quite in scope for what we have planned so far (none of the other guns have animations either besides vfx)...so we'll think about it. It is the signature weapon of the railgunner ship, so regarding the next piece of feedback, we obviously don't want to have it be overshadowed by others like the ion cannon, but it already oneshots most enemies (and has some AOE actually, not that you can really tell when something dies in one hit). We'll think of ways to improve it, like having a single path upgrade tree, or higher base stats, or maybe a tie in with other mechanics.
Other weapons are being considered, and likely will be part of the steam demo when more content is added. Mine layer was also something we were considering, though not as a gun...(also not sure what hedgehog means in this context).
Long term, we would like to pursue having different weapons better for certain enemies/situations. This would make the loadout selection that much more important and interesting. Frankly, it would require significant changes to the current enemies to achieve that, but with the content we have planned for the steam demo, we will likely revisit the current enemies to make the engagement with them more interesting in that way.
Heard on the shield projector, definitely has too much health atm, feels trivial to use. Having an active part to do would be great as well to make it a more viable station than flat defense, like parrying shots or absorbing energy etc.
The game was a lot more difficult before the flying enemies were nerfed, so perhaps their damage can be brought up a bit. The boss (from experience) is very hard in single player, challenging for two, and fairly simple for three or more (at that point, you can have a dedicated shield person). We can look into ways to provide more challenge, like maybe elites do more damage or have more guns, maybe some things scale based on number of players so it's not such a drastic change in difficulty level (currently nothing of the sort happens).
Thanks for putting all this together, sorry about the issues you faced when initially setting up, and glad you had fun! Thanks for supporting the game!