Hey Mark, thanks so much for taking a look!
Appreciate you giving it some time and the warm words even though it's not your cup of tea, I expect many folks to feel the same as it is quite niche. I also agree that the tone is fairly cold and oppressive, this is intentional.
I've experimented with gamepad controls in the past but haven't found a good solution both technically and in terms of dealing with the increasing complexity and required dexterity of the gameplay, maybe I'll manage to put something together before release.
I agree with your take on the ship selection screen and the tutorial flow, and am planning to make the tutorial more narrativized as well as include a pre-gameplay cutscene that explains the overall world and goals before throwing players in. I also plan to split several elements of the selection screen into their own subscreens, since most of them will receive much more content, by release. Right now the demo is quite cramped. Tooltips and video previews are a good call that I'll work on implementing for release as well!