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Wow, Jack. I'm sorry to hear that.
Have you tried other avenues? Like gog.com?

Regarding the Sniper Rifle Critical. Yes, it does have a high critical rate, but honestly I would rather burst fire to get two attacks at 60% acc. than pray for 20% crit on a 99% acc. single attack.

I propose the Critical Dmg Multiplier to be increased for Snipers.
Example:

Light Wep Dmg Critical Multiplier : 1.20 / 120%
Energy Wep Critical Multiplier : 1.50 / 150%
Heavy Weapon : 1.75 / 175%
Sniper Rifle : 2.00 / 200%

Haven't tried gog indeed, now they're open to indie games so might give it a try.

About the sniper rifle critical yes, makes sense. Also in the sequel I experimented with a speed-based movement turn. So not like now that is "your turn / PC turn / your turn", but each character (both enemy and ally) would move based on the kind of shot and skills. I have yet to try and see how much impact it will have on the combat, and actually if to implement it at all or not. Once Loren is finished, I plan to do some experiments and maybe start an early beta of PS sequel with some test battles to decide which gameplay mechanic is better

I've got a suggestion regarding how psionics work, in particular Harm. It does a certain amount of damage that bypasses all armour, but has the opportunity to miss.

I'm thinking it should be the other way around: let psionics always hit, but let damage be reduced with armour rating. Most psionics cost a lot of "mana" already to balance it out; in my experience it is very frustrating to use a high concentration Harm, only to see it miss and waste a lot of "mana" for nothing. Not to mention, it encourages "save/reload" tactics.

I also think psionics powers like Shock and Fatigue should always hit, but the duration should depend on enemies' resistance to psionics, rather than being fixed.

In the sequel the Psionic works quite differently already in the prototype I made last year - I decided indeed to remove the "miss" completely, and replace it with simply a reduced damage instead, so you wouldn't waste PP in any case. Also Shock, Fatigue, etc always hit, and there are also AOE psionics - now the level of power determine the area: Single, AOE (2 targets) or all enemies. AOE makes the use of Psionic very different, and as you can imagine managing aggro even more problematic (a mass heal for example increases the aggro to the psionic by a lot!!)

*Raises two thumbs up* Awesome news, Jack.

When I get back working on it (probably this summer) I'll be sure to bother you two (and others that wants to test of course) with a small demo of the new combat system, so will get immediate feedback about what tweaks could be needed, since it really changes the way of playing it a lot

Good to hear, Jack. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Will events in the first game have consequences in the sequel (particularly the choices between rebels/King)? And will it be possible to import saves from the first game?

Well depends what you mean by importing saves - the full stats/items no, but I think should be able to import some variables, like which faction you sided with, and which romances you had. I am not sure if makes sense to import, or just give the player the choice on startup (what I did now). I mean, since you might want to try playing the game as if you romanced Rumi, but you don't have that savegame anymore or don't want to go back and play it again just to have the "right" savegame
The current prototype has a sort of more detailed character generation similar to Loren, which asks several questions: "with who you sided with"-"who you romanced"-"which class you picked" and so on.

Maybe both should be used? Import would be good for people who played the first game, but people new to the game can fill in some questions? This is how Mass Effect 3 handles it.

Yes, right now there's no export code but I remember towards the end of the game I wrote "You might want to save the game now, just in case an expansion or add-on is released in the future and you want to keep your current character." So will add the export code after that point and should work (but I am not 100% sure, since the libraries I used changed a lot and old savegames might not be compatible).