UPDATE 11 MAR 2020:
In most top-down shooters I've seen, the enemy doesn't specifically target the player. Instead they just fill the screen with bullets and hope that something works.
Scrapship is not going to be like that. Enemy ships will only fire on the player when it is practical for them to do so. That was today's progress.
Pattern-based waves is another staple of top-down shooters I've never really understood. Great for memorizing levels for a high score, but not so great if you're going for replay value. So my plans are for Scrapship to have random quantities of fighters, of random types, spawning at random points and moving to random locations. No two playthroughs will be exactly the same.
But what about you? Is there anything you like or dislike about top-down shooters?