I'm a beta tester and thought you'd like to see my notes. Deeper Into Space has a very intriguing gameplay loop! I love the smooth effects and the attention to detail, though I also think a few things are holding it back from being superb, namely the random weapon accuracy cone.

Menu:

• In menu navigation: it would be nice if space bar doubles as Enter when it comes to menu selection
• Right after dying: the ambient music cuts out, and then resumes when the Game Over stats show (instead of just continuing all the way through seamlessly)
• When unlocking items, as the unlocked item is manually typed out, character by character on-screen: it would be cool if typing sounds and backspace sounds would be added to accompany it
• At the Game Over screen, moving the selection from "Main Menu" to "High Scores" fails to create a menu sound

Controls/UI:

• Pressing E did nothing for me; I always had to right my ship manually using the booster whenever I got stuck (which happened on nearly every single planet)
• Auto-sort the inventory whenever stuff gets collected, so that identical copies of objects are adjacent to each other
• If you entered the jumpgate with the map showing on the HUD, it'd be a nice touch if the map continued to display on the HUD when you start the next sector
• There is currently no clear indicator as to when oxygen depletion is occurring or not, in relation to planetfall; I can't tell which planets are reducing my oxygen or not, or where the boundary of no-more-loss is (maybe show the leftmost 1% in the HUD oxygen as continuously flashing a mild red when it's being depleted)
• Dedicated toggle key for Aim Assist, like G?
• Oxygen tank description should say: "Fills 02 to max" to be clearer to maximize it only when you're almost completely gone
• Oxygen tank to buy at the store for 50 scrap says "5 oxygen" but the oxygen warning measures the level in percents, so maybe it should say "5%"
• Temporarily light up the floor of a store (with a sound effect) to indicate that you've successfully landed and Shift's options have expanded
• In the Archive, be able to hold W or S to then initiate a slightly faster, continuous scrolling through the list (like ¼ sec of time spent per item before moving onto the next one)
• Show a warning/reminder when trying to boost while in combat mode
• A note saying that your ship exploded because of lack of 02 would be helpful. (And maybe not exploding at all and instead just stopping and fading to a black silhouette of an asphyxiated ghost ship…)
• When holding Shift: lightly glow the square in the bottom-right that you're currently in, for faster identification (considering how your ship is yellow, and one of the planet building colors is also yellow, which could potentially lead to confusion about where you exactly are if you paused, returned to the game later, and forgot, if you were docked at it)
• When selling at a store, require a second right-click within 1 second of the first right-click to confirm (so you don't accidentally sell an oxygen tank, etc.)
• I have no idea of how to check how many skill points I have to spend apart from docking at a yellow building
• "JUMP POWER AT MAX" sounds like nothing happened because it's already maxed out. Clearer wording could be "JUMP POWER RESTORED"/"RECHARGED"
• Instead of reading "All un-saved progress will be lost" when exiting to desktop, it'd be more helpful to see something more like "All progress since the start of this sector will be lost"

Sounds:

• Needs different thud sounds against:
  • asteroids
  • purple space constructs
  • planets (including landing pads) when not facing right-side-up
• When ending a boost, the sound effect abruptly stops instead of having a "power down" tone
• Add deploying & retracting sounds for landing gear
• Add two different sounds when changing flight modes
• Add enemy thruster sounds
• Separate sounds for fatal hits versus postmortem explosions
• Add a recharge sound when you gain jump fuel at an oxygen station
• Add a sound when Aim Assist locks onto/loses a target
• Add a sound when opening and closing the Shift menu
• The hypergate jump sound could be grander/longer
• Combat music should immediately stop at the moment when you enter a hypergate, not when the screen fades to black
• The laser weapon should emit a continuous "bzzt" sound whenever it's hitting a target
• Sound upon detection/map-marking of the hypergate

Combat:

• The music could dynamically change faster when getting into or out of combat; occasionally it took several seconds before it kicked in during combat with an enemy, which seemed awkward
• The first combat tutorial should mention the spread of the starting weapon's accuracy, and that auto-aim is optional but enabled by default
• Combat flight mode should not auto-disable when you accidentally enter a planet's gravitational pull while there is still an enemy nearby
• Enemy fire could be more dynamic if it had a randomized, short delay of time between shots, after each shot's minimum reload time (to make their shooting more unpredictable and harder to time)
• Anything that could differentiate mines from asteroids (unless that's intentional), like a red dot in their core as is commonly depicted in games
• It'd be more interesting if destructive enemy fragments gave off a random amount of junk than only 2 pieces
• An enemy with a jump signature spawned inside a planet and couldn't get out
• It doesn't make sense that enemies attacking a distressed ship deal damage to it, while your shots clearly hit the ship but do not. Your shots should either also damage the ship, or pass over it as friendly shots that don't collide.

Difficulty:

• It's extremely unfair for enemies to always have pinpoint precision but for your shots to have a wide, inaccurate cone, no matter how well you aim. Skill versus random chance is the biggest factor that makes or breaks players' perceived fairness in games, and subsequently their popularity. I would strongly suggest applying the same aiming setup to both sides, whichever that may be.
• It would really help with the game's difficulty if mines were not friendly to enemies, and friendly fire is active; either/both would be a great reward for tactical players
• If an O2 canister is guaranteed to be in any system entered with low O2, then it would be nice to have a reminder line like "O2 detected in system" when starting in it
• I personally think that you'll have to choose between planet- forcing-combat-mode-off versus allowing-enemies-to-attack-while-you're-docked/trying-to-dock; we can't have both, as it's just unfair to make players fight when they can't even go into combat mode.
  • If combat is prioritized, then it'd be a nice touch if, when enemies are present, planet buildings turn a flashing-red and stop responding to your docking + you can stay in combat mode.
  • Otherwise, enemies need to be programmed to avoid planets' gravitational pull, and/or friendly buildings could be equipped with defensive turrets (which would, of course, be the nicer alternative).
• You should be able to shoot down SAM missiles, including with a scrape or two of the laser, and/or they should have fuel; they seem to have infinite fuel…
• To potentially help maintain community interest, you could follow Noita's structure: after many, many sectors, have a major final boss + a final score, and with each New Game+, increase the boss's health.

Graphics:

• It could be a really worthwhile touch to add a central, rotating turret on top of your ship & every enemy, which would explain everyone's 360º fire. Otherwise it looks odd seeing shots come out of no particular exit chute from your ship/enemies' ships while the stationary, crate-guarding laser turrets clearly have pointing barrels (for example).
• Color red (or something else) the damaging particles from enemy explosions, because they otherwise look too similar to collectible scrap and unfairly hurt first-time players trying to get them (which is what, uh… I did 😅)

Really great work thus far but I'd say if there was any one thing holding me back, it's the inaccuracy cone of the starting weapons (at least, in comparison to the enemies' accuracy) that discourages me from replaying the game much. Hope this helps! I also have a list of screenshots noting typos in the menus and elsewhere that I could share if desired.