At least I was adding and changing things in Deadly Waters, but how much did it really affect actual gameplay?

Not much, what I discovered after hosting for a few hours today. To win a round, you only need three or four decent players. That sounds laughable compared to other games that you can beat yourself, but the game is designed for teamwork. If you have a reactor technician, captain (obviously), and another unspecific person that helps out, you can win a round with minimal problems. I don't know if this was normal, but there would only be about one or two enemy ships per round. I remember facing more of them, but it could have to do with the enemy creation system was meant for shorter rounds.

I don't know if I simply got used to all the updates, but it seemed like all my work didn't change normal gameplay, and if anything made it worse in ways. The things I consider "big" or "complicated" would be the things that would change around normal gameplay. A lot of the changes I made had to do with bugs, and item changes or additions. The fact of the matter is that I don't really have an eye for spotting bugs until I play the game with those additions. So, new things that don't really affect gameplay just are also buggy.

I'm at a strange point here, because I don't know if I should try to continue on with this 'minor' updates and try harder to gear them to interact with normal gameplay, or work on 'major' updates that would take some time to do, but would certainly change standard playing. Both would create bugs and some sort of hassle to make, so i'm not concerned about that.

It's just pretty pointless to be updating things such as the medical system and engineering system, when essentially during normal play the players just need these things to work and produce results. Although, I could make these currently 'side-systems' more related to 'central systems'. However, it would then take 5 or 6 people to win rounds with minimal hassle, and i'm leery about that.

The problem with the 'major' updates is that I honestly don't have a good idea on how to create them and encorporate them into the game.