Like everyone else here I have a few ideas. Some references that might be worth the dev's time. Boardgames: Wreck of the BSM Pandora and Voyage of the BSM Pandora. Swing over to boardgamegeek.com and check out these old classics. Both are paragraph driven games which offer a really solid system for exploring the surface of alien planets. Videogames: Lightspeed . An old dos based space exploration game. Originally a vector based game. Worth taking a look at from the perspective of ship design, upgrading, and maintenance. I still say it has one of the slickest ship upgrade systems ever done. You could trade aliens for components to add to various ship systems. In combat components would get damaged and you'd either have to take components from other systems, replace the damaged parts with spares, or just deal with having some systems out. Very cool and engaging. Star Control 2. You can track this one down as the "Urquan Masters" for free now. The first big hit in 1992 for the programmers at Toys for Bob (the guys that did Skylanders on the console). A great reference point for how to deal with movement between stars and encounters/combats that might happen in such a way that it keeps the players interest. Still one of the best story driven space games out there. All of the above mentioned games have a really epic space exploration feel to them that I think might spark some ideas for starbound.
