Promising! I don't love it (yet), but I definitely don't hate it, either. The VS influence is very, very obvious, but that's not entirely a bad thing. Things that I think would help make it a bit better: slightly better early game ramp, better visual distinction between what is an ally and what is an enemy (especially bad with ally ships vs enemy ships), perhaps synergies between upgrades (ie. increasing your ship speed increases ally speed, increasing ramming increases shark damage, etc.).
Also: If I try to enter a code and I don't have a code, I end up getting softlocked.
Edit: Oh. And Naval Ram is basically a mandatory upgrade. To the point that the game is a LOT harder if you don't have it. Feels pretty iffy? Maybe include it by default, but scale the damage slower, or something..?