interesting point about piloting. i think you're absolutely right... i found in my playthroughs there were a couple times when i needed to check the draw pile, and a couple times when i simply made a misplay (especially due to the "flexibility?" card) but for the most part the hands do play themselves.
on the one hand, this is something i was kind of shooting for--you'll notice, for example, that there are two very easily accessible draw 3 cards which are just ridiculously strong. the idea was that it is simply fun to play a big hand of cards, and that it really helps sell the idea of the card mechanics as sex when you can kind of flow through them in this way. that really is kind of the idea with the in/out system too, there's this literal rhythm to it as you're playing.
but on the other hand, i did want to make a reasonably strategic game. i think i'm decently happy with the balance (i often find myself losing to a unique subset of encounters on each run, so i don't think most of them are too over or undertuned) but it is almost certainly bad in some places. i find the game pretty easy on average but i have no idea if that's true for everyone else, and i tend to err on the side of "let it slide" for jam game difficulty as i often find i'm way better at my own games than the average player (cause i've spent the whole month playing it...)
(also, it is super easy to go infinite in my experience. i might want to nerf the draw cards and such a bit. lol)
anyway. that's where i'm coming from. i do think i too would like to see piloting be more of a consideration. thank you for the ideas along those lines! (and to be honest i didn't even think about the deckbuilding/piloting distinction even once over the past month... so thank you for even just the reminder of this kind of conceptualization, lol!)