Ep.1 was better, IMO
I'm going to have to echo a lot of sentiment here- that being, this game is inferior to Ep.1, overall.
I like that getting parts isn't totally random- and that shops actually have useful items now. I also like that the ship auto-collects energy when it can, it means the computer isn't grabbing everything when we go head to head over a node.
I don't like the lack of an explorable overmap, or the tiered combat system. Similarly, the ship weight and value limits are bogus, especially considering that they didn't exist in Ep.1.
Honestly, I hope this is kind of just a flier, and that episode 2 is much closer to Ep.1 in terms of gameplay. That said, this isn't a bad game, it's just not as good as it's predecessor.