StarDrive was abandoned before it was feature-complete. If anyone is looking at buying this, I strongly suggest waiting until the features you want are in the game. That said, owners of StarDrive will be able to buy StarDrive 2 for 33% off. And the features that did make it into StarDrive made it a hell of a fun experience, in my opinion. I don't hesitate to recommend it even today. Just don't believe what the dev says about StarDrive 2, wait until it's in game.

I didn't say it was abandoned, I said it was "abandoned before it was feature-complete". And what difference does it say if he admits to it publicly before moving on or not?

Not including originally planned features is a great reason not to buy the next game before what you want is in. Normally you should be cautious, but in this case it's straight up a dev that broke his commitments so you just shouldn't buy it until the time is right.