My EVE

OK first some background. I've been playing space games from almost before they were a thing. Asteroids on a sleek Atari 2600. Solaris on a 7800. Later getting a DOS PC. And lived it up with things like X-wing vs Tie Fighter, Wing Commander, And master of Orion 2. Moving on then to more recent titles like Independence war 2, X3 Terran conflict, and MMO titles such as Star Trek Online. There are others and similar games, but those are the ones that stand out a lot.

I have only been playing a Alpha account for a few days now. But I was aware of the game for many years.
I'll just list off some statements of observation and how i feel about them. Let me know if you have had similar.

#1 The layout of space and the map interface are real close to Independence war 2. MASSIVE universe! Detailed systems and web like Lagrange points. This games scale is way bigger. and its scope much wider. To bad you were only a pirate and story driven in Independence war. I did get mods to make it more sandbox but a lack of depth and game bugs kept me form going far in that. I hope to improve here.

#2 Ship and station detail reminds me of the X universe. BIG and well designed. With both having many different types of ships per race and faction. many ++++! The flight systems being different where X was a direct control and this is more point and click. I say more as there is some manual control and first person view but not to the immersive scale of x.

#2.1 The mission system feels like X, trade mission, Fight mission get reward!

#3 Now as I'm kinda new still the market and item/equipment system feels a lot like Star Trek online. Teck tier stuff and variations. Open market to buy all the items in the game. Eve dose seem more balanced at first glance. So it makes you work for it. STOL was way to easy and its micro transactions were garbage. I feel EVE will be much more enjoyable as a challenge.

#4 OK the item NPC based market system seems to me to have a lack of trade in general stuff options. X3 had a supply and demand system for um everything... This game seems to be geared to me toward ship focus and not general NPC ISK making system. That said I get the focus is on Corporate Alliance PVP ship battles. And thats awesome! but maybe I'm to new to know much about making ISK from being a goods transport hauler.

#5 Ok quick on skills. I love their time biased and not a grind doing tasks! Makes it so i can just play and every now and again get a tiny up in something. I feel its balanced and encourages people to play and not just mine ore for days just to gain a level in mining.

#6 (General game feel) OK shock moment if you have been following! This game reminds me a lot of Runescape. Open world with lots to do but limits for Free to play players. Lots of juicy Premium player stuff you can only use as a premium player. Even the combat system is sorta similar. Attack miss, attack hit, attack hit, dead. But with more diversity. A rock cant get in the way, a station seems to have no tangible substance(but I haven't tried to crash into something big on purpose) .

So far this game feels like a kaleidoscope of many things I like about many games I've played in a simple yet insanely complex system. OH! and I Love Project Discovery. a amazing way to spend the in between time I want more that! Increase the Flash Gordon noise and put more science stuff around! And more real world science or teck mini games. Maybe one for circuit completing.

I was also a huge fan of I-War 2. Eve has very similar atmosphere and you are right about the L-points being same as stargates in Eve.

Ship controls also get more complex (you can manually pilot using double clicking) once you get more into PVP.

Here is long time PVP enthusiast and somewhat of Eve celebrity Chessur explaining how to fly ships in combat:

Part 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ke3ROIFB3Ms

Part 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T8YpXgqsyoY

So I recommend you find some group to join asap that does lots of PVP. And leave highsec as fast as you can, nothing intresting happens there.