Very generous with crystals this time around and I finished the whole thing without a single combat upgrade thanks to the turret power. I felt that combat upgrades are like a tax that you have to pay, it's annoying to waste your hard earned mineral on something that's a token "get this so you don't die" upgrade. Even with the new enemies combat feels like a token phase that interrupts your mining. Personally, since you've already implemented mouse control, I'd make it so the lil dude can walk around and shoot guns. You could even make it so there's random guns to find around so exploration would reward combat without sacrificing progression. Whatever way you choose to tackle it I think combat is the weakest part right now.
The final sequence was cool and looking for objective around the map was nice.
This thing stole my minerals and doesn't seem like it did anything.
The extra vision was a nice buff to get but the camera being zoomed out caused a jittering effect which was annoying.
Having these little side things is a fun shakeup from the monotone mineral mining, good addition.