Thanks for all the interesting replies! Given the response, I decided to make a whole community around this, hope you’ll consider joining!
If you liked this thread, you might like: !likethismaylike@lemm.ee
Remember, if you’re on a different instance you may have to search the url first: https://lemm.ee/c/likethismaylike
On 5, have you heard of Crying Suns? Crying Suns is more in the vein of FTL, so not a deckbuilder, but if memory serves I think it has the branching map to it.
It’s received some praise for its setting from what I gather, but I haven’t gotten around to seriously playing it, so can’t speak much to that.