I thought steam was out before that. I thought I recalled installing steam and thinking man this server browser sucks compared to Kali.net / browser at the time. Had all sorts of problems playing hl one based mods multiplayer before hl2 came out. Of course they fixed everything and it was amazing for a long time (mp server browser in hl based games). I’m pretty sure steam was out for quite a bit before hl2 dropped.
Did they ever make any ui changes? The worst part of this game was being mid battle trying to menu and add materials to your ship or guns or whatever. The ui and gameplay from this aspect was god awful. No amount of adding other things makes this game good for me if the bad menu ui and mechanics are still a thing.
Welp I just switched to AMD