Thank you for the reply!
I will definitely be adding the circle that indicates where ships are off screen. Especially since i plan on making the playable area a lot bigger and giving the ship a moving camera. Its a much better idea than having them appear as dots on a mini map.
I also definitely will be adding the danger to crash into ships. Not only would it take better advantage of the movement, which seems to be the most liked part of the game, but it also would delay the utter chaos by thinning ships out.
I think the idea of multiple factions works really well with the game's time clone restart mechanic. (which is almost a narrative on its own) If we assume our intrepid space explorer has found themselves trapped in some bizarre space-time phenomena after a close encounter with a black hole; it would be cool to have multiple factions for them to side with. One round they might be fighting with faction X, then on the next they kill that time clone to borrow more time, and now they're fighting for faction Y. Maybe an evil scientist can give them an upgrade, but if you take it faction Z hates you, so on the next round you let your time clone get the upgrade so you can use it, then kill that time clone to gain favor with faction Z.
You could even save the galaxy on one round, then accidentally kill that time clone before they can even start, thereby preventing the galaxy from being saved.