I've been mentioning this development problem years back, particularly in needing some sort of endgame of story wrap-up.
Instead the features being focused on where 'colouring in asteroids' - superficial glossing of an already pretty decent, robust product.
The Ziggurat update was by far the most interesting, on point and relevant update I think I can remember in this game. Since then it's been 'colouring in asteroids' or redoing a system or 're balancing'.
People are finally now starting to see what I saw and want more substance, it's not a matter of needing it now, we should of had that years ago while the game was already stable.
(IMO) - The issues and frustrations aren't necessarily around speed of development, it's around the direction.
I think there's too much obsession around trying to get this product 'perfect' - when in reality it just needs the core story implementing and story features added.
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The game originally had one single system, with a bunch of ships you could fight and that's about it. It was rough around the edges.
No-one complained about that did they? We all loved it.
We've been polishing, and polishing, and polishing, and refining now from what seems to have been a length of time that is becoming a real frustration.
I personally don't mind some of the officer skill limitations, I didn't mind the rough edgy, sometimes limited colony management, I don't mind the factions don't have a huge lore backstory and tons of extra stuff. I don't mind that there 'might' be missing gaps between ship classes or some factions have more stronger ships than others. That's life.
What does bother me is since the really good Ziggurat update, we've had nothing substantial when clearly you are capable of adding and expanding on that story content.
Even if you introduced (lets say one of the inactive gates opening up) in one single sector, with new alien ships pouring out. (simple and effective update) - Which would keep people tiding over and create something interesting.
With that being a new feature, you wouldn't be blocked by legacy code (hopefully) or a sticky implementation. You could give small features that add a lot of value like that, which keep paying off for the player. Until the next big story feature that gets developed that expands on it.
So the next update could be more inactive gates opening up, with a couple new alien class ship types emerging. Next update could be Factions have a meeting to discuss steps to tackle the problem. Next update could be the research station gets involved and the player is sent in through one of the gates (to a single, small isolated sector with some alien ships in)
Fairly good, stand alone updates that can come out in quick fashion, giving some breathing life back into the game and the community, while not trudging through the old codebase, also aligning with the longer term story objectives.
Bit of a different approach isn't it, rather than 'colouring in asteroids'