A bit late reaction, I do believe a good balance between accessible gameplay, but the schematics was a needed step in the right direction.
- Gave quanta a purpose (Before my org was living off the grid and even installed our own token system)
- Making industrialist a profession
And the basic parts were still cheap. So in the end the amount of hate that it got I just unjustified.
And progress is needs to be keep in check at the start. This part of the phase the game the progress gating is vital. As the game progresses the items are going to be acessible. So it wont be too long before most parts will be accesible and eventually with teamwork you are able to reach end game quicker by good teamwork.
So eventually when everything is ramped up it has a high accesibility and the markets will be filled with a good a mount of products and if then also people think about cost efficient ships and keep the motto: Only fly what you can replace. Then we we will have a good balance between accessible gameplay.