Sorry to leave you hanging here. I didn't miss it, I've just been working on implementing a lot of what we've discussed and it took longer than expected :). Yes I agree about controls and have been working on this from many fronts.
1) I'm working on letting people remap the existing controls to different keys and gamepads, still in progress.
2) I've been working on Astar pathfinding both for the AI and also so you can control big ships with an RTS style right click on where you want to go method. Here is a youtube video of where i'm at with this, it works but is not yet usable in-game.
3) I've been working on weapons which can be controlled in ways other than point your ship and shoot.For example, turrets auto-fire with in certain firing arc as seen in the video below. These are in-game but do not draw energy, can't be controlled and will just fire at any enemies in range. They are OP atm and will be nerfed in next update.
I've also been working on a targetting system where you can right click a ship and is added to a list of ships you can fire on with more automated weapons. This is still in progress but you can right click for targeting recticle.Lastly, I've been working on new control schemes in general including a high-speed "hyperspace race" mode.
Thanks for the offer of assistance , I'm still trying to solo this at this point though this may change soon and I'll definitely reach out if it does. In the meantime do you know of any example games or youtube videos showing control schemes you think might work better?