> i assume that adding star systems and factions to the game are way more difficult.
Its more or less the same, what really changed was the addition of a economy and markets that need to be setup with the new systems. Those however are also simple enough, but right now, due to a few problems on the current 0.65 version that are being fix on the next hotfix, we wont be able to help much.
Once their fixed, a few mods will immediately jump into 0.65.2a and u'll be able to see the how-to