Feedback Some feedback from an early access player

Hey guys.
Thanks a lot for working on the game, I love it quite a bit. I've played this game since the day it first appeared on Steam and I gotta say the changes to planets, their overall landscape design and ability to take quests is a very good move and I really like the way the game has included stuff so far. I remember writing on Starbound forums back in the day before, providing suggestions and such. Thankfully, most of what I've suggested has been included. I like that.

Right now it really feels like there is yet a lot to explore, and I really like that. However, there is a certain issue I've stumbled upon.
The process of exploring itself can be called rather dull and boring, especially when it comes to exploring every planet.

Back in the day, you had really cool techs and potentially cool boss fights that could be issued on these planets, non-mission boss fights. Though I gotta admit, they weren't as fun as they are now in missions where you have to go through lots of locations and kill NPC's before you're able to get to the boss himself.

The point of this thread
So what's the point of this thread?
The techs we have today are very dull and repetitive. I didn't find any much difference between sphere techs, for instance. The double-tap abilities are all boring, except, perhaps, for the sprinting one. The only good one is the mid-air dash, lets me jump on ledges if I can't reach them, or avoid falling to death.

I'm quite sure that this was discussed before, especially given the fact for how many people I've seen write on other forums and in Steam reviews that they miss the butterfly tech, for example. The blink-teleport (especially when you could blink through walls) and the FTL dash were exceptionally good and cool in my opinion. Not only did they allow fast movement for players on planets (which is why people liked these), but they also were fun to play with against NPC. Now it isn't so much fun. I understand the reason blink tech was nerfed due to missions and dimensions (which is why I'd suggest completely disabling them, except for spheres since you need them for those small passages), or making blink, FTL, Butterfly techs and of such be possible to find in chests, but be so rare as to spawn in blue tech chests as before, and perhaps not even on every planet.

Back to the exploration topic
Now, as for the exploration part itself, I can clearly understand the fact that these planets are all procedurally generated with their own generation scripts, so making some individual changes for these planets is near-impossible. BUT, there are still ways to make it more fun. And partly it is with including old techs, I'm sure of it.

Grind
Something I also quite dislike is that there's a fair lot of grinding in the game. Unfortunately, I can't give very good examples, but the main point at hand is it feels like I have to mine, do boring things and waste my time just to achieve something. Not sure how to express my thoughts in a better way, to be honest.

Weapons
The random weapon generation is a good take on making more content. The problem remains with the feel of its variation. I remember having very damn powerful weapons (especially the fish that slammed all the blocks to shreds. That was fun) which sadly were removed. I can somewhat understand why though. I know there can be weapons like the tentacle gun, the whip, boss drops and such, that adds variation, and that's pretty good. Also staffs, those are also pretty cool but feel repetitive. Perhaps you need to include staffs that shoot long beams or something. I do know that it will eventually get boring too though. There's a need for more unique things.

Please read this too
In the end, before I finish, please let me say the following: I do know, that we have Workshop with people creating their own techs and such and I do respect their creative ideas. But as a player and a developer, I'd rather include things that many other players want. It is simply way more fun that way and feels like I'm playing the official game. I do know though, that you guys included something that players did themselves too. Respectable.

Something else to add:
I read through this (wo)man's review: https://community.playstarbound.com/threads/space-exploration-is-great-but.133886/
I didn't include anything in my feedback on that, but I can see where he's coming from. I haven't had too much space action, along with mech usage, for instance, but I can feel like I agree with him so far. You should consider that too.

TL;DR
Things I disliked: techs, grind, exploring gets rather boring at times, lack of unique items with epic effects, optimization (unmentioned - but I'm sure people complain about it a lot already, so decided not to mention it, along with some other stuff).
Things I liked: The overall changes since early access, lots of new variation, cosmetics. Lots of new mechanics, especially for building stuff such as bases. Colonization. Other.
I like the way the game is going so far. Keep improving!

That's that. Thanks for reading, if you did read through this wall of text