I do believe Starbound is in need of a little overhaul of changes and additions, here's what I had in mind: Make the Start of the Game flow better - After escaping Earth in the intro mission, you find yourself at the Outpost rather than a random lush planet. Your first task is to interact with each facility to receive an Erchius Shard, then talk with Penguin Pete to repair your ship, allowing your to explore right away. If you chose to skip the intro mission, you'll start with a functional ship over a lush planet. Core fragments would be changed so they're just used for crafting explosive/energy based weapons. Your own Ship Harbor - The Erchius Mine mission now serves a new purpose, after completion, you unlock a special Harbor, where you can purchase, upgrade, and switch out different ships with the one you start with. New Planet Structure - The Planets you travel to are now adjusted to be somewhat larger than before, but have a wider range of biomes to explore, instead of having a set danger level, there would be a danger range based on how far from the starting point, and how deep into the ground you are. This allows you to find better quality ore and items early on, but at a greater risk. Minimap and Time - You now have access to a minimap, making it easier to navigate, it also includes a special clock that varies based on the current planet you're on. New Academy and Explorer Teams - Along with recruiting new crew members, you now have the option to send them to a newly constructed Protectorate Academy II, you also gain an Expedition Terminal, where you can set up a crew from Academy members and your Ship Harbor to explore planets for you based on certain factors, if you want them to explore specific planets, stars, or even just gather a specific material you have in short supply, you can set it up as such, but you need to make sure the crew is properly prepared, if they return via respawner, that means their mission was a failure, and no items will show up in the collection cache. Story Missions Reworked - Probably the biggest change, is adjusting the Artifact Missions so that they can be done in any order, with the difficulty scaling based on how many you've already completed. Research would be tracked with a new SAIL option, you can select which one to prioritize, and the surrounding stars/planets will be highlighted based on which has the strongest lead. The murals around the main gate would start out dim, but light up as you complete missions, so that the history of the Cultivator and Ruin is told to you gradually, instead of all at once. I await your opinions and feedback.
About your first point, I'm not sure if getting the player first into the Outpost mechanics is a good idea, since for now as you just spawn on a planet you're directly faced with mining, placing items and building which are good to get to first in my opinion. But in term of story/context it would be indeed nicer to have lore and a bit of purpose at the start of the game instead of a pause between the intro and the Outpost. I don't get why you would want planets even larger than now (I guess small planets are too small), you usually already have several biomes by planet, and you can travel for free between planets in the same system (which can have more or less the same biomes). I like the way difficulty levels are now, but your proposition is good too, to be honest I don't have a lot to say about this because I could deal with both. I think the map and clock idea is great in any case, and it would help with your idea to expand planets (I feel lucky to find my stuff in caves after running at random with no lights put down and dying). I like the idea of managing your crew to do complex tasks, but I don't really want them to "explore" instead of me. And it feels a bit too easy to ask them to gather things at the price of just some gear that could be easily replaced (it could be a way to use all the weapons you find that you don't use though). Finally, I agree with your last rework idea, I guess it would be weird to make it work as there is still an order (like Hylotl mission then Glitch mission with Asra Nox) but there is enough missions that are unrelated to be done in which ever order we want. And for now, if you have already scanned items that are needed to complete the research it just unlock progress.
A slight change to how the New Academy would work: Instead of sending crew members to planets, you would have Specialized Classes, and Idle Support Teams: Specialized Classes- when you assign crew members to one of these, they can improve their efficiency, or change into a different job altogether Idle Support Teams- crew members assigned to support teams gather materials over time, there would be several groups Mining Team- gathers ores for you that you can collect from the terminal. Builders' Team- gathers Wood, Glass, and other building materials Agriculture Team- Grants the player a food terminal, where they can purchase any material/food gained from crops, as well as milk and eggs Hunting Team- gathers materials gained by defeating monsters, as well as various meats for the food terminal Chemists' Team - provides stimpaks, healing items, as well as oil, poison, and fuel Fashionistas' Team - allows the player access to special mannequins, if you place a vanity item that's part of a set onto one of them, other pieces of the set will gradually appear on it as well Scrap Scavenger Team - gathers mechanical materials, and mech crafting parts The amount and tier of the items collected will depend on the current level of the support team, the level increases by assigning crew members with specific jobs, and providing certain materials to them, they can only produce materials that you personally already found, so there's a reasonable balance of active and passive progression.
