You raise a lot of good points I'm also wondering about.
I'm aiming for a wider, casual audience. I'd like the game to appeal to hardcore shmup players, and there'll certainly be ways to flex that skillset, but the overall design will lean towards ARPG mechanics and build customization. So the intention is part exploration in the vein of Star Control 2, part Path of Exile-style ridiculous build minmaxing, part twitch shmup gameplay. As such I'm pulling inspiration from all over the place and I'm not too concerned about genre conventions.
> lose the ship
The ships will be craftable and the player is expected to swap them often. I agree that currently it's not very exciting. Lore-wise, the fact that the forms you use are not human shaped is part of the vibe I'm going for, so I want to see if I can make it work despite the problems you mention.
> mouse & controller aiming
Good point about forcing player movement. I'd like for the offense to be more active, so DPS checks can to an extent be cleared with player skill instead of raw firepower. I've been thinking about directional damage reduction for enemies and/or optimal ranges.
Classic shmups are built the way they are out of necessity, given the controllers available at the time. I'm messing around to see if I can get something interesting by mixing in mechanics from dual stick shooters, survivorlikes etc, but it's possible I'll drop all that and go back to a basic shmup setup, with directional weapons + auto-aiming turrets, perhaps angle-restricted.
Gamepad aiming is a huge issue and I'm unsure where I'm going with this. Ideally I'd like the game to be playable with a dual stick setup, which would require either some kind of aim assist for the turret or, as you said, a wide cone of fire.
> reason not to push a button
The next version will have stronger and more resource-limited weapons, for now I wanted to explore a few basic designs.
Thanks for the in-depth review, I appreciate it!