Glad that the game is starting to feel better! :D
Some of these things that you've found aren't actually bugs, but rather poorly explained mechanics (the lab duration and oxygen costs). I agree that the oxygen costs are getting WAY big, but it depends on the gravity of the asteroid you're launching from. You can always hover over a cost/stat to see the formula used to calculate it! Try that with the Tech 2 duration and see if you can figure it out :P
Asteroid gen is still very unbalanced, so I apologize for the bad RNG. Also, ice can be found in asteroids far from the sun. You might need to get some scan and launch range upgrades!
I'll fix the hub->relay issue in the next patch, sorry about that! There are some other things that I'll put safeguards on in the future too.
I have an idea for your solar efficiency problem, stay tuned :P
The mute issue I'll look into, but if it's an issue of the game running >24 hours, it won't be an issue when saving/loading is done.
Thanks for keeping me updated with stuff you find!