From things they have said, my impression was that if a modder makes their own thing it was going to be an "alternate universe" and not a part of the SCO map.  This can also be done the SFU way, the SCO map would be the "Alpha Octant" (or however many sections you want to divide it into) and mod games would be other "octants" of the galaxy.  Or, in the language of my own universe... other "Places".  

Maybe a dumb question or it has been noted and I didnt see it. Is that Fwiffo on page 18? 

^ placeholder.

Essentially, yes, an auto-mining or whatever specified ship should have gaping holes in other areas, as RPGs, even RPG-lites, require the player to make decisions on how s/he wishes to play, and the player shouldn't be capable of having an all-in-one ship, even at the end game. As for the auto-mine module, I am saying that not having the auto-mine module should not be a major hindrance to your game performance (as in, you should be able to make that decision on the merits of the system alone, and not hamper yourself just because you like the mining mini-game. It should be an option to play the game effectively, not a necessity). Even being optional module does not mean it wouldn't be "necessary" for maximum game efficiency, so to speak. For comparison it would be like having an insta-gib and OHK anything weapon in a game like, say Fallout 4, with an easily achievable price point. You should be able to acquire that weapon if you don't like combat, but it should require a significant time and economic commitment to acquire it, usually at the cost of some other area.

To sum, I am fine with an auto-mine module as long as it isn't so obviously superior to manually mining and requires a significant resource investment to acquire. Don't want to mine? That is fine, but it will be achieved at the cost of lower combat capability, at least initially when you would be able to acquire the system (in the late, late, late game if players just refuse to end the game, you should be able to plug-and-play the system with a more combat-oriented play-style at will, but that would be at the point when you have acquired essentially all technologies and a practically infinite source of RU).

An auto-mine mechanism could be balanced in a number of ways, most obviously as follows...

1. Costs a ton (as it should)

2. Acquires less resources than manually grinding all the resources off the planet (so you don't have access to infinite resources once you buy it, otherwise that would make this module a "necessity" in terms of game balance)

3. Takes up a large space for a module (kind of like the Chmmr bomb in SCII, takes up a large space, but not all of it)

4. A little bit of everything

Preferred choice, not too excessive to make the module useless, but not too little moderation to make the module over powering.

Yes, this is essentially the case I was lobbying for. You would have to make a tradeoff as far as where your initial RUs go, but then you would be able to recoup your losses by doing more exploring and auto-mining. The costs are something that can be balanced. 

Can we convince Stardock to implement it, though? Call me a cynic, but will they let us bypass a system that they sank most of the game's budget into?

Again, it would have to be optional and very expensive, with some obvious disadvantages over manual mining (less RU per planet) then there would still be incentive to manually mine. Not to mention it would only really be there for those that hate mining, as those who like doing it manually would prefer a more combat-oriented build.

Totally, true, but this sort of thought is also apparent to some extent in Star Control II. While things like rotating sections for gravity make sense if you're creating Expanse: The Game, just some superficial thought into what makes a given race tick (i.e. how the delicious salad species avoided being eaten by the race of vegans who co-inhabited the planet with them) would do a lot to differentiate the ships and the play styles.

Possible answers could include forming a shady agricultural corporation and patenting their own seeds, thus bankrupting the vegan farmers, or genetically modifying themselves to make everyone taste like broccoli and cause diabetes.

I can appreciate that some may dislike building bases and the like, finding a balance that will appeal to a broad group of players is always challenging.  There are things that could be done to make it require less maintenance, such as the bases automatically contributing an amount of RU, or open up other aspects of the game for those that would like to use it, but do not make it a requirement.  At the very least, I would like to see the game open to modding such features in.

I guess can we either

1) Fix the problem where the white spaces in the name cause most browsers to barf when trying to download the stuff from the Vault?

2) Just don't put whitespaces in the name from the get-go so the vault downloads actually download properly

I mean sure I can just rename the files to zip and make it work and all. But it seems silly

^ You wot m8?

Not sure if this was already discussed, but if we have environments tied to difficulty, and a low number of overall environments, isn't there a risk that players will basically be funneled to certain environent types during the early, mid, and late game? I'm guessing there will be some diversity involved and the Easy/Med/Hard categories might just represent a general tendency, but still:

Early game players will be inclined to explore desert/barren, and thus potentially grow bored of their visuals/challenges more quickly.

Mid game - Only crystaline? Ok.

Mid/Late game - Acidic/Volcanic/Rainbow?

I don't know, the difficulty coding combined with low diversity of planet types kind of increases the risk of exploration turning into a bit of a grind IMO. I can't handle Volcanic yet? Lets look for some more crystaline and maybe poke around the deserts again.

If you're crafting a Single player experience then this isn't too hard to manage. Since you want the story to progress in a specific way you can essentially gate technologies behind planets, but place them strategically so they aren't "oh thats so cool except i wont get to that planet until the end game"

I mentioned this before but I think what would be far worse is to require tons of back tracking to previous planets you've already visited. Aka you can land on a planet but oh sorry some rare resource is here, but you can't get it unless you find "magical tech Mcguffin #15". Sure this kinda works in every lego game ever made, but its super annoying otherwise.

I don't want to see much "gating" though. That was part of the fun. In the original, you COULD head straight away, to Alpha Centauri, with planets that are 5000-degrees, and loaded with fuchsia Tzo Crystals - AND IF YOU WERE GOOD ENOUGH and had a lot of luck - swoop down, grab a few crystals, rinse and repeat, until you had a nice haul! It would help put you ahead, and that's an amazing feeling. You DID that, it was your own achievement, and you were rewarded for it. In my opinion, games like Starbound gated you far too forcefully. Let me at those dangerous planets with my space-clunker, and decide if the risk vs reward is worth it! What's a few landers and 36 crew, or so, for a hold full of high value minerals!!

Yeah, I remember taking risks like that sometimes to get those yummy Tzo Crystals, that was pretty fun. But sometimes you didn't even have to risk anything, because it actually was possible to find some relatively safe crystal/volcanic/rainbow worlds. Sure most of them were on the hella dangerous side of the scale, but there were safe ones too. Same thing went for the worlds with less valuable resources. It was possible to find very dangerous worlds filled with meh.

So overall, there was no hard gating connected to planet types. There were tendencies in regards to what dangers/resources you would find on the surface, but they weren't strong enough to make the player instantly aware that he won't be able to handle a planet just by type (in solar system view). So you still wanted to check out that crystal world even in early game, because it might be one of the easier ones. What I wouldn't want in SCO is to fly to a solar system, look at the planet types from afar, and instantly go "1- Can handle, 2- Can't handle, 3- Soon, 4- Can handle, 5- Can't handle."

My biggest gripe is lack of budget for more then 6 planet type worlds.

I understand we need couple of hostile worlds like acid and lava. And that rainbow world needs to be for the setting.

But that leaves us with just 3 more worlds:

Barren: lifeless desert

Desert: "life-has" desert

Crystaline: "cold" rich mineral world

It feels very lacking.

What is really missing. In order of priority.

1) Terran world: Essentially the cut forest world, teaming with lots of life. It will be very weird that desert worlds are the ones most suitable with life now.

2) Snowy world: to complement desert one (although, if crystaline world is "cold" we could have two in one)

3) Rocky world. Think of darker version of barren world with mountains and mountains. With some extra 3D asserts this could be a mineral rich world

Come to think of this... Could we with some basic retexturing and small amount of modeling get snowy world as retexture of desert one with some tweaks, as well as less cold version of crystaline world. Having something similar for rocky world, as variant of barren and volcanic world.

I'm totally fine with Ocean world being expansion material. It seems like highest effort to do.

One more thing to add about planet exploration.

Please have a log of visited systems and landed planets. It wil really help managing the resources.

Additionally make sure to keep balance of original game, where resource gathering is means to the end, not end of its own (modders can made sandbox mining crafting game, if they desire it).

Endless grinding should be punishable just like in SC2, while exploring and advancing story be rewarded. That way you could have 200, 2000 or 20000 worlds. It would not matter. Just small number of these will be needed to be visited, just like in SC2.

I agree with the log of planets already explored and visited, with the ability to reset a planets visited/explored status.

The previous suggestions were to flag visited systems and planets where you could see them right in the hyperspace [map] and star systems. Checking log for visited planets is bad, bad, BAD UX. From one of the screenshots of the game's Galaxy map you can already see tiny push-pins which might indicate that we'll get some form of tracking system for our travels.

I hope the push pins are like the Witcher push pins where you can make a small note to yourself.

Please take user cuorebrave's ideas into consideration, he has a point - namely for the different color planets in order to achieve bigger variety and brighter and distinguishable ship colors!

I like you! Great minds think alike.