@Alex: Have you settled on whether hullmods will be one time unlocks or will improve with greater ranks?
Pretty much set on one-time unlocks. Too much of a can of worms to have it be incremental.
im somewhat concerned that, in making 2 affinities and 10 skills the hard-soft cap you'll make whatever's just before that a little too hard to reach...
I'm hoping this has mod support tbh, it has the potential to just make everyone happy with whatever number you choose then.
The way I'm thinking of it is there's a rather sharp discontinuity in the level curve where the soft cap hits. And yes, this is moddable - there's actually a script that tells the game things like the XP required for level X, the number of skill/aptitude points gained at level Y, etc.
How about a mixed cap? Major progression elements stop at level X (so the player can never max out every skill), but minor progression elements continue indefinitely, with diminishing returns, so that the player always feels like he/she is grower stronger even in a marathon of a game.
In an old turn-based RPG, that might mean getting no new skills or perks past, say, level 30, but still getting a little HP each level and perhaps the occasional extra action point. Not sure what the Starfarer equivalent would be!
Interesting idea, will definitely give it some thought. Like you, not 100% sure what those would be - have to think beyond just combat, too.
Assuming the player can never get all the skills and aptitudes (which I, for one, am in favor of) will it be possible to re-spec them?
This is a thorny question for me. I'm leaning towards "no, but yes if you edit the save file/turn on dev mode/use a cheat/some such". If you had a game with a fixed world (say, like Diablo, Torchlight, WoW, etc), then allowing respecs is a no-brainer. But if your character build is actually rooted in the game world - for example, say the number of outposts you can control is determined by a skill - then that's a problem.
Never mind that you could spec one way to do something you couldn't do with one build, then respec and do something else - what you've got then is a modified - and more awkward - version of "I've maxed out everything". Again, thorny, and works much better with a static world.