Please, no. The point of the Codex is the player can reference information of just about anything in the game, like an in-game encyclopedia or instructions manual, without the need to go to some wiki on the net. I would have loved an in-game codex for other various games. Having an unlockable codex means someone may needed to search the internet to research content if stuff is locked up and hidden.
Would be really easy to just have this be a setting: defaultCodexVisibility = true/false
Or, the hard way, a full blown option in the options menu.
Satisfies both preferences.
But imo you really can't have an exploration game where everything is visible in a compendium that is also brought up each time an item is referenced in game. Its just too easy to have things spoiled. For people like me, where one of the main selling points of the game is the "explore the sector for knowledge and profit" feature, I don't
just want to come across little blurbs here and there about lore, and scattered randomized resources.
Sure, that is really awesome and I want that too, but I want to be able to find and build ships and weapons that would otherwise be "unknown" to the other major powers in the sector. And I
really don't want that to boil down to seeing it in the codex and going:
"Oh so that's how many skins there are of the Dominator, and it looks like these 3 factions use it because it has these skins. Oh and look that's a weapon I haven't seen before, what does it do? Gotcha. Well I guess the only mystery now is where to find the resources for it."
Not awful, but not really exploration as a feature either, at least not to me. Cookbook gathering with the only real secret potentially being the recipe is a closer description.
Now put that alongside:
*Near a previously unexplored region of space and come across a fleet*
Its a new faction of post collapse colonists that have banded together for survival in this lone region of space, with a powerful salvaged Domain-era weapon system on their otherwise unremarkable vessels. This weapon can be:
1) salvaged from their wreckage by defeating their ships (only found in this region of space)
2) manufactured through a high skill in technology and the relevant skill trees by "reverse engineering" the design
3) purchased from the faction upon receiving "favorable" status, etc.
Its the not knowing that makes exploration fun. If i know beforehand that this faction exists "somewhere" then its just a matter for methodically looking for it if I want the weapon that looks good. Since its a minor faction, maybe its not even generated every play-through. (I know procedural factions would be a lot of dev work, but with the system in place there is just a lot more room for growth there down the road)