After clicking on the computer and starting the Deploy step, the left side UI changed width based on the text for "Minerals Left". I'd suggest giving the parent container a Custom Minimum Size that fits the largest width. It is not a big thing, but the shape changing does draw the eye a bit. Personally, I'd also like the font size for the details to go up a size or two. It feels much smaller than all the other text. If you are trying to keep the size of the panel down, then maybe reduce the extra left and right margin on the details. It looks like they may have a bit of extra margin compared to the buttons, such that the border of the buttons extends beyond where the text goes. None of this is all that vital, but little things that may help it look a bit better, at least in my opinion.
Clicking on Manage Droids, I only saw one, with the other being covered by the Customize details. The WASD controls remain from the previous screen, so I wasn't sure if they still applied or if there were additional droid. The first thing I did was to try them, and did see that there is another, but I think it would be good to have some UI element to show there are more Droids. Maybe add something at the top showing which # of Droid you are on out of how many, such as "Droid 1 / 2", or even a simple display of "Total Droids". Other view angles, or zooming out so there is at least a hint of the other could work, or even starting on the one at the right, as the one on the left is visible.
I hope I don't seem too nit-picky with my UI suggestions. These are all just little things I'm noticing or thinking of. This next is quite minor, but I feel like it may be the effect you were going for. On the Customize panel, each component slot has the slot name at the bottom, overlapping the border, with bits of the border showing through. You may want to add a Panel Container behind the Labels, using the same background color as the rest of that area, and give it a couple of pixels of Content Margin on the sides. This should cover up the border of the parent Panel Container and give that cutout look you often see when having text overlap a border.
I still ran into some of the bugs on customizing the Droids that I had last time, such as the popups not all closing depending on what I clicked that closed some of it. I also had a hard time selecting the Right Module for editing, and initially thought I could not do so. It looks like you have to click on the lower part of it to select it.
It looks like the 2 starting droids are the same. I customized the second one to have the Construction Arm, so I could try it out. I also added a third that was like the original design, but with the Advanced Body.
For the first deployment I got 505/500 Biomass, 6658/1000 Minerals, and 28/10 Enemies destroyed. It would be nice if there was a popup when you complete the goals, or for the Cancel Mission button to change to End Mission/Mission Complete or similar. Since nothing seemed to be happening to end things, I clicked on Cancel Mission to see if it would popup any info. It told me Mission Failed. There should really be a confirmation on cancelling the mission. After clicking Return, it shows that I can now deploy to the neighboring areas. The original section gives the same message as locked areas about needing to conquer adjacent land to unlock it, and shows the original details about minerals left (which did not match what I collected, and I did not build any houses), though State has changed to Contained.
While on the surface I built my second Droid with the Construction arm, but did not see what it did. I did clear most things with the first and then went back later to build it and experiment, so maybe I should have done so earlier.
On Mission 2 it did pop up a Mission Complete screen, though the game did keep going in the background, and I was right next to a spawn point.
On that mission I made a new Droid with a Laser in the Top Module slot. It did not seem to do anything. I could not manually fire it, and the automated shooting seemed to only use the side Modules.
Mission 3 also completed fine. Maybe if I had just added more Root nodes and claimed more land it would have triggered the completion. So far it seems that all the areas are the same. Maybe the Aggression rating is affecting how close you need to get to a nest for them to spawn, but I'm not sure on that. I mostly snipe them from far away so they don't spawn.
For this one I modified my Advanced Droid to put a Mining Arm on the Top. It worked just fine. In the future I'd probably go with one of the originals, assuming you must have at least one Droid with the Tower Gun to be able to build Towers, and then once collecting enough minerals, upgrading to the dual Laser plus Mining to serve as the away unit. Of course, the current game is easy enough that just the original is more than you need.
When I started this playthrough I just looked at things to see what had changed, and tested out shooting. Then the night swarm came and I started dealing with them using just the first unit. After I cleared the ones nearby I added a single Tower and finished off the wave. Then I got some more minerals and started adding some Root nodes and a few more Towers. I found that one Tower is generally enough per side, but built 2 on each side just to be sure. Then I went off to destroy all the nests and collect the minerals. After that I came back and experimented with things a bit before expanding towards the night spawn points and building 2-3 Towers near them. Then I'd build any remaining Root nodes needed to claim more land.
The new view being zoomed out and more overhead does give a feel of overseeing things and giving orders. I think it works for the game. The Laser feels like its range is too long. For a jam and making it easy for testers it can work, but it really makes things too easy. When you start you can just blast away at nearly everything from the start point. The minerals get in the way of some, and just the outer most are out of range. This really contrasts with how close the enemies get before automated shooting kicks in. The auto-shooting feels a bit short ranged, especially compared to the weapon capabilities. I'd increase the automated a bit, and cut the overall range down. I'd suggest starting with reducing it by 1/4 to 1/3, and see how it feels. The biggest thing for me is that you shouldn't be able to snipe the nests from out outside of their spawn range. If you are shooting at them, then they should be spawning to defend themselves. Perhaps you could even make it so that one spawns every time the nest is hit. Obviously you are not at the point of balancing difficulty yet, so don't need to put too much time into difficulty, but some minor tweaks to give a bit of a challenge would make th playtesting more fun. I do enjoy trying out the new features and seeing how it has changed, but wouldn't mind a bit more challenge.
I like the grid with different areas to claim. It gives more of the feel you've been describing about claiming a planet. It also adds more to do with the potential for different areas to have different challenges and difficulties. Having said that, there will need to be differences and new challenges to make the new areas not feel repetitive. I don't want to just start over and do the same thing repeatedly. Sure, a bunch of droids would be fine doing that, but the human gamers will need new things to keep them interested.
The game seems to be coming along well.