The Space Exploration Retrospective

Thanks for the feedback and the caveat that it’s in alpha/experimental. People usually assume that the mod is near finished, but really large sections of the mod are in a placeholder state waiting for that section to be overhauled. Fortunately most of the things you dislike are placeholder content. I’ll try to summarise some of the current roadmap.
Most of the real “exploration” content will be added quite late (0.8 or later), because it needs to fit around the activities and capabilities of the player at various points in the game and I want those to be better defined first. Exploration is also content-heavy over systems-heavy, so it is something I can get contributors to help with but the other systems need to be more solid first. For example the ruins, things keep breaking when the mod changes so I really want to have the other systems stable before adding more exploration content. Exploration is also mixed in with some things that will happen with a robot faction. The mod already has a lot of PvP features (like meteor defence shooting enemy delivery cannon projectiles, umbrella vs energy beaming, etc) and the robot faction is intended to give you a way to fight with (or make peace with) an enemy with similar inter-surface capabilities and weapons.
In 0.6 the biggest limitation is the temporary planets system. Currently all planets are one planet type that has a random climate and random resources, there’s nothing really “designed” about their experience beyond processing 1 resource. Version 0.7 has a lot of different planet types and each one will have more intentional gameplay. That’s not just environmental challenges and unique terrain, but also a decided set of available resources that can be used together for a local factory. Where 0.6 has 1 main resource with a linear process + some random (often useless) secondary resources; 0.7 will have a primary resource and some guaranteed secondary ones that are not just used for processing the main resource but also to make local science. (And yes, that literally does include lakes of sulfuric acid for specific planets). Some planet types will have a dedicated building (sometimes replacing a space building) which can only be built there, like a magmaworks, vitamelange arboretum, or an oceanic tower, which will also be needed for the associated science. 0.7 doesn’t have any science tiers (1-4), every science pack is named (asteroid, stellar, radiation, genetic, neural, etc), and half of them require a small base somewhere specific such as an asteroid belt or planet type. This means that roughly 40% of the current space science packs are moving to the ground so when you go to an iridium planet it’s not just a mining base, you’re also doing one of the material science packs there. This general tech structure is already in place, but the exact recipes are still in flux and something I will be trying to get more community feedback on later. There are also things like more toys from bio sciences, jump clones, reasons to go to other star systems, less grind, etc. but that’s a list too long…

Man with how space age turned out this video aged like fine wine

Looking at this and your play through I’d say Space Age adds all those things like planet specific challenges, but of course it has to be easier than Space exploration because not everyone wants to spend 1000+ hours playing SE blindly for the first time

I'm in the "middle" of this mod rn. I say middle as im nearly 10 days (gametime) in and i've only got 5 of the space sciences. My space base is as absolute mess and i've long given up trying to keep it neat! Main base on nauvis has the biggest bot mall i've ever made and has all the processing for basic and advanced materials just hacked on wherever i can shove it. I'm thinking about tearing it all down and rebuilding but i just dont have the heart atm. I keep leaving it for a few days and coming back to it. At this rate it will probably take me a year to complete. One hell of a mod

it is hilarious how many of the proposals came to existance in space age

Listening to this after space age hits differently

I watch this while having three planets conquered in "Space Age" (the DLC) I can feel your opinion were recognized a lot, especially the isolated planets and own resource cycles issue.

Oh my god they pretty much took all your suggestions to make Space Age, but perhaps the word more than the spirit.

This aged like wine lol

7:20 predicted a bunch of DLC mechanics here