First things first, I just want to say what an excellent game Starfarer is shaping up to be, it's a really original combination of gameplay mechanics that I think is going to end up doing rather well. The only other real time game that I think has really managed to capture an authentic feeling of the ebb and flow of battle, albeit in a wildly different setting, is the Total War series, so kudos to all of the developers and Alex especially.
Anyway, this is the suggestions forum so here goes;
1. I, probably like everyone else, am probably most excited about the campaign, but I hope that there is still some focus left on missions as they represent a great opportunity for modding and a lot of mods are probably not going to have the resources for a full total conversion so missions will probably be their main focus. Games like the PDS mod for Homeworld 2, and the scenarios in the Total War games provide a good example of how missions can be used to create interesting story driven or one-off scenarios. I imagine modders will enjoy re-creating specific battles in Starfarer, something which hasn't really been easily achieved in other games up to now - I know I'd love to play the rebel assault on the Death Star! Anyway broadly just a suggestion that missions not be neglected when campaign development starts up.
2. Somewhat related to the last point; a real focus on mod support, specifically; nested menus for missions, so you can create individual mission strings that don't just get dumped on to the mission list with everything else, as once mod development really gets going and people have several mods installed that will get messy very fast; also more possibilities for win conditions, some of these I would guess are already in-game, and some not, but things like destroying a specific ships, having a specific ship break through and retreat, capturing a specific relay or buoy, reaching a certain time limit or completing the mission within a certain time limit.
Additionally support for bigger sprites and/or the possibility of a single ship using multiple sprites, as presumably for performance reasons, sprites only render at a certain proximity to the camera, which means that very large ones (I built a huge asteroid base) pop in while you're already on top of them.
Last but not least, a mission editor would be excellent. I know there are arguments against it, and it takes up development resources, so it could perhaps be a post-release thing depending on strong sales. I'm sure to someone who is coding full time that text editing a file is perfectly simple, but to most people it's not, it's precisely the opposite, and it
will decrease the number and quality of mods. Mods will be harder to make and will discourage the sort of people who do them best; writers and artists, in favour of them being developed mainly by the technically minded (on the plus side though you'll probably get a lot of Star Trek mods and arguments about the science of deflector dishes.
I myself am trying to work on a mod but I got somewhat frustrated when just changing a few ships took me half an hour and fifteen or so crashes followed by the joys of wading through Starfarer.log. I think Minecraft has already show us the possible benefits of unleashing the creativity of ordinary players rather than just a tiny minority so I'd say it's really something worth putting some serious thought into.
ps stop wasps from taking on super-capital ships, solo, head-on
