Ah, that's nice to know - although that might lead to some stuff like grinding trade routes (although hey, it was in the mod before this update hit, so it's not too much of a biggie - just a personal thing).
And for some reason, the fact that ALL the star systems have star colors that match their faction color (green for XLE, red for RSF, white for ISA, and bluish for the UIN) is picking at my mind (if indeed the stars are all what they match - white stars for the ISA, red giants for the RSF, etc.). I could be wrong, and each star could be different when you see it in the campaign screen, but I'm just curious.
Also, you mentioned having an exploration system - could things like entire star systems be hidden? Realistically, stars like WISE 0855?0714 could evade being detected due to it's extremely low temperature - having an entirely hidden system like that would be really nice to find, especially if it's position was randomized whenever you start a new game.
As a final note, I do kind of think that having close to 20 system with a trade fleet limit of 100 is in that odd spot between epic gameplay and being able to run the game. Having any more than 100 trade fleets means that a lot of people can't run the mod, and having fewer system means less content to explore. I personally feel as if it should be bumped down to 3 or 4 per allied faction like the UIN and XLE, as they technically are the smaller factions compared to the RSF and ISA to cut down on the sheer amount of memory needed (and, to overall improve the stability of stations
). But hey, in the end, it's your mod.