Thank you for your feedback, I am very happy that you like the look of the game!
I was also thinking of a way to tie the shooting ray to the center of the screen and allow mouse control. A bit like in Starlink: Battle for Atlas. I think the trick is to have the player control the camera rather than the spaceship. Basically the spaceship would be attached to the camera and fake being piloted.
I wanted to make the plant blink in red when you shoot it, but I could not find a way to animate the color of the mesh.
Hopefully I will have some time after the votes to improve parts of the game :)