Suggestions

From Discord:

Will we be able to put drugs or other foreign elements into the air (drugs to keep crew happy, drugs to kill invaders, etc)?

From twitter:

Virtual reality entertainment / training.

From Discord:

Exploring and finding Alien artifacts,
it'd be sick if you could like, experiment on alien substances or materials to learn about it, or even get blueprints.

From Discord:

Not sure if anyone asked already, but are you gonna make Steam achievements for SH? If so, could you name them with puns? Like "Run, Forest, Run" on Factorio, or "Intrinsic Value" on Prey or "Pimp My Bride" on Beholder!

Will there be a Reputation/Infamy system that'll make others want (or not) to join your crew? This could easily interact with another ways to get them, such as recruitment in stations' (if these are implemented) cantinas or job boards. One thing that seems lacking on RimWorld is focused recruitment. Like when my colony is more developed and I'm lacking a cook or fighter, I always look at the raiders Bio, when I'm attacked, so I can use a Psychic Shock Lance, but this has side effects. Recruitment through a job board could help lessen this pitfall. Of course, such shouldn't be easy and/or free.

Crew recruitment ideas:

Slave trader with a very experienced crewman.. Will you choose to pass by, try to extract them by force or try to blow the slaver up or buy the slave and then keep him or choose to give him freedom (, dropping him off at the next station?) (But he still might choose to stay with you)
Would be quite nice. But not just with a dialogue option like in FTL, but depending on what you do, so more things to do might be available, if you can think of them.

Our ideas are finding them in cyopods aboard derelict ships, saving them from aliens, perhaps getting someone from another groups ship, having them come to you asking to join.

So:
- Slave trader merchants
- Finding them aboard derelict ships locked in a room or in cryopods
- Finding them abducted by aliens in the alien base
- Someone coming with small ship asking to join, or being stranded with broken ship.

Will there be any spaceborn creatures that act like ships but cant be boarded and could be part of story missions or hunting them

Giant Space Whales which you space combat and then send your crew to harvest (eventhough they are a nearly extinct species that does no one harm).
That will be a moral decision and an interesting encounter... because maybe you let it go and at some point karma will smile upon you. But if you don't let it get away you get all those resources but bad "Karma" which could be an overall player stat.

yes, maybe it is illegal to kill space whales because they are endangered and because you killed one it puts you on a black list for a certain encounter. Therefore if that secondary encounter happens you will be attacked because of your actions.
Other things might be attacking civilian ships you may encounter again causing a negative impact on the "space police"
However if you do things that help people maybe the space police will not only not attack you, but they will protect you randomly when you are losing a fight
(or something like that)

Does the Arcade machine bring you into a minigame that can provide additional levels of enjoyment based on how well you do?

From Discord:

"Yes which is why I still believe there should be a story maker in the UI which takes the highlights of your latest run after you die and puts it into a mp4 or something."

From Discord:

Finding wrecks from other players (Online feature).

Will there be some sort of workshop were people can post their own creations for others to download. Shipwise.