Noice! I appreciate that stuff related to systems and worlds can't be spoiled all that much so I'll hold my questions in check, heh.
So the Ludds really are the type to erect great cathedrals and such, eh?
Why, architecture can be among the highest forms of expression of spirituality and devotion. (Or: I think space cathedrals are awesome. Check out "Absolution Gap" by Alastair Reynolds for some nuclear-powered space cathedrals on giant caterpillar treads circling the moon of a gas giant.)
You also mentioned a "one off mission", are those gonna be specially scripted missions that'll have major impacts on the game?
I did? Oh, I see: I mean the "missions" you select if you click on the missions button on the main menu as opposed to the campaign mode.
Which is your favorite faction, btw?
Honestly, I don't think it's possible for me to choose. And I might even be a bit uncomfortable if I were to make a "Mary Sue" faction. Maybe it'd feel creatively compromised, or didactic, or something along those lines. I try to make all of the factions compelling in their own way. I mean, I think I find all of the factions that exist in the game as objectionable somehow in terms of my real-life views, but the point is to find a way for them to make sense to themselves and express a point of view that makes them appealing and sensible in their context.
This is also partly in reaction to what I expect of players. The sort of person who plays Starsector is going to find it a lot easier to identify with a technologically advanced, militaristic faction because they bought the game to fly spaceships and shoot lasers. The challenge I'm trying to meet is to make that player archetype appreciate a bit about what the Luddic Church believes in, for instance.
A model for this might be Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri. When I first played the game, I thought Prokhor Zahkarov was the best because technology rules. But I grew up a bit, read more deeply into what was being said and implied in the world-building, and I think all the factions come out a bit more on balance. Miriam Godwinson may be the shrill fundamentalist, but her criticisms of the absurdly dystopian futures being built are not without merit; likewise aspects Yang's nihilistic zen are not an unreasonable reaction to how old modes of emotional thinking simply don't work in a world of inhuman technology. And Zahkarov? Lots of human experimentation going on there; I doubt it's just a mouse they dumped through that prototype teleporter. And you think Pravin Lal is the good guy? Based on one quote in the game there's a tiny story about how he stole his ex-wife's DNA to make a clone to ... keep as a concubine? It's not made clear, but there's something messed-up going on underneath his good-guy image.
Basically, SMAC has some really great writing going on; it's unafraid of getting really dark and really critical (as starkly opposed to the rather milquetoast writing in Civ: Beyond Earth).
Do any of the new Core worlds have an Antimatter Fuel Production Facility or will the Sector remain dependent on the whims of the Diktat? I think it was a year or so ago I was thinking the League having its own fuel plant would help in part explain its ability to resist the Hegemony.
Yup, there will be more fuel-producing worlds. The League has at least one, and the Hegemony has at least one.