Hi! I played the splitscreen together with another dev on our team. This is the main feature of the update, so I will mostly focus my review on splitscreen Co-Op. Most of the testing is on controller.
Splitscreen Co-Op:
We did two runs, for both my partner went with the Tank. One run I went with the Dart and, partially because I for some reason spawned upside-down with my camera not aligned to my ship properly, I died in the rings resulting in the ring issue that they told you about.
The other run I went with the Carrier. That resulted in all of the early combat happening over in one area with my Carrier fighters valiantly not really doing much damage to the enemies, but keeping them all focused on battling the fighters. This meant that we were able to go collect things around the map. This is where one of the big things that I was afraid of came in. My partner's ship got lucky and got the upgrade "Spice", and that led to them being able to take out a lot more things, leading into them getting perpetually more powerful, and taking out most of the astroids that I could get upgrades from. In addition to this, I was getting terrible RNG with the Item Containers and Black Market Vendors, so most upgrades were basic, low level upgrades that did not help me much in combat. By the second zone, they were practically un-killable, while I was unable to get to any of the containers or vendors because if I stopped moving for a couple of seconds I would be destroyed. I think that having some sort of benefit to the other player when one player gets an item, maybe giving three quarters or half of the Item power to the other player, so that it is less likely for one player to become OP while the other is super weak.
I feel like for the towing you need to get a little too close to the other ship to really be reasonable for you to tow out your fallen ally if you do not get to the point where you become practically un-killable.
In general I feel like the game is not well balanced for two players. There are not enough high tier upgrades for two people. Same for the turrets. I also feel like the enemies are not well balanced. We were able to get a bunch of gear and upgrades early on because the fighters distracted the enemies, and the other enemies could easily be taken out by the Tank.
Other Notes:
When on mouse, after using RMB to zoom in, when I let RMB go I no longer could look around.
The updates to the controls don't feel good, I don't know how to explain this, but the controls feel slightly less responsive and a little off on the timing from what I expect. This is more notable on Controller, but it is also notable when using Keyboard and Mouse.
The restricted zones feel a little easy once you get to the third zone, I entered one expecting to probably be destroyed, but the enemies were the same level enemies as I was fighting elsewhere (Wasps, Tri-guns, Kilo Slow Gunners, etc...) I was expected a group of something like the Demons to be the challenge.
I feel like enemies should not be able to spawn right next to your ship, especially when they are high tier enemies.
It is not initially clear that you get the Throne's judgment when you start charging the gate.
The UI updates, and new models look good.
I like being able to zoom in and out with your basic zoom. It helps when trying to snipe an enemy from afar.
The Item "Old Boomerang" feels quite powerful for being a Basic level item, maybe either decrease the chance of mirroring damage, or make it a higher tier item.
I feel like the boss is still not really a challenge, if you get hit by it's beam attack, you might be in trouble, but as long as you keep a little distance, the boss is easy to take out. An idea I have for making it tougher, would be to have it spawn enemies so that you cannot be just focusing on it.
I feel like the Carrier Fighters got nerfed, and like they cannot take enemies out most of the time. Maybe reducing the number of Fighters down to 2 but making the fighters more like they were before, so that they can take out enemies, but there are fewer of them so every one lost means more.
That is all for now, I like your updates, and look forward to where you take the game from here.
-R