Thanks for checking out my game! Really appreciate your feedback on the game feel and potential improvements.
Will try to experiment a little on the controls. I had tested A/D for strafing early on but it was even more confusing because the camera didn't turn. And firing the laser at any time in any direction does sound more fun lol. Ideally it would have been possible but I wasn't able to create a system to manage the asteroid mining progress universally, hence only shooting on locked asteroids. Though mining an asteroid through another asteroid is a bug, will fix it in a future update!
Also great suggestion on potential upgrades! Hadn't even thought about thruster upgrades and what that could mean for the gameplay. Cheers!