Future Ideas?

Just letting my mind run wild here;
So we have a lot of features for interior design of the ship but they're still just blocks externally, would it ever be planned to have external design that allows players to customise their ship on the outside to actually look like a ship? You could even put uses onto random designs such as having armour pieces or maybe satellites that increase communications, maybe even solar panels to harness power from the various stars in each system. Furthermore, (although this may play with internal weapons designs also) you could have turrets that poke out the sides of your ship rather than out the top.

Additionally, clearly you can expand the hull horizontally to make them look huge, but its all one floor. Would it ever be plausible (albeit time consuming im sure) to allow hull expansions vertically? This could open up a lot more opportunities for the player to make their ideal ship whether it its an intangible mass of bits and blobs all over, a mothership from the Homeworld series or the flat ships this game offers. It could allow for better organisation as i know i would format a ship to have engines at the bottom floor, essential systems in the middle where its safest (making combat a more interesting dynamic regarding how you most safely place your constructions) and guns at the top deck. Would these be ideas that could ever be plausible or am i rambling like a madman?

Either way this is very impressive work from such a small dev team. I wish i could help with the development of the game myself! thank you

Hello!

And welcome =)

Solar panels are already in the game! Regarding the outside of the ship it is possible, but cannot say for sure at the moment. Lots to do so we have to pick our battles =)

Z-levels have been a frequent question indeed, but it is not something we are planning at the moment. Due to how the game has been designed, and the possible can of worms regarding technical problems, overall game play and user awareness; we opted to stick with a single plane to build on. There would be lots of tweaks needed to make the user interface work, to keep the player aware of all situations as things can take place on multiple areas all at once.

Glad to have you on board!

OK, I started several sims over the last 24 hours, learning as I went and then starting over when I realized what horrible mistakes I had made. This was a good learning experience.
I did settle on a Builder level Normal difficulty ship with 4 crew. After 52 days in space, I have come to these conclusions:
1) the single plane is best, i could not have kept track of stuff on 2 levels.
2) Really need a few more crew.
3) There are some building tech items that are choke points. If you don't get it right, you can't build the things you need to make the things you need to build with. It would be fantastic if there were different ways to make the same thing, so you don't get stalled.
4) Not enough trade ships. I only encountered two and they ran out of the things I needed. I sat stalled in a system (so far, 14 days) without a trade ship entering the system. If one doesn't come, or have hyper fuel to buy, then I'm dead. They need to be more frequent and they need to always offer hyper fuel.
5) taking over derelict ships? is that a thing? I can hardly build the systems I need on my own ship let alone outfit another to make it spaceworthy. I sure can't give up any of my 4 crew to man the derelict if I took it over.
6) Maybe trade ships should sell crew members? like colonists?
7) never saw a need for hyper chambers
8) Built items outside power grids and they seemed to work. Built a food maker and it constantly flashed that it needed power, but it seemed to grow food and the crew serviced it. Maybe it operated on a lower efficiency without power? or is this a bug that allows systems to work without power?

OK, so I tried the mining platform version. Nice to have 5 people. 
1) you can't dismantle or move any of the mining station equipment to your new ship. Why?
2) I was too ambitious with my floorplan for a new ship. After the crew used all the steel plating, and we mined the system and the derelict, i couldn't get anymore. So I demolished parts of the ship I didn't need right away. The crew came and took the pieces away, unloaded boxes onto the station, and never came back. So, dismantling doesn't put the parts back into inventory for use? That's a problem.

Hey, I really love the game so far. Played it way too much the last 4 days with plenty of restards one thing popped into my mind all the time:

It would be so great if there were big doors.

I like to create corridors that are 2 fields wide so that the crew can pass each other easily. I usually just add 2 doors next to each other. Works totally fine but it maybe ther could be either bigger doors or if you put two small doors next to each other they could link like walls.

Not sure if it is the game already but so far if there are pirates they just shoot at your ship. Mabye it would be fun if there would be boarding parties as well so you have also considder the security on your own ship. Maybe there could also be an alien attack that could easily turn your ship in another breeding station for those nasty beasts