Any news on competitive-friendly features for AC or SM, such as team balance or game modes?

We're playing around with it, but it's not a focus right now. We want to get that baby PU out first.

Things like balancing and team matching are also a lot more complicated to do well and to make sure that it's something that people are going to stay engaged with. Long term, yeah, I think we're going to need stuff like that, but in the near future, we've got a ton of other features, ships, and just core things that we need to get built in so we know what to balance and matchmake around.