So here's a question that has been on my mind recently. Do we have any information on how resource needs will play out in the long run? In other resource-gathering games (Minecraft, Factorio, Space Engineers), resources (iron, for example) are permanently gone when mined. Makes sense. In DU, we can leave permanent changes in worlds, so it only follows that resources will be permanently harvested as well.
This is well and good for singleplayer/small server games because there's virtually no chance that the area will be mined out to the point of excessive travel to find resources. The only real possible problem is if a new player joins and there's nothing for miles to harvest. Which rolls nicely into my real point.
I have to guess that as resources are depleted and spent, assuming resources don't respawn, the player activity bubble will expand as a hollow shell. Players will mine out a planet until the scraps left are not worth retrieving, and then expand the bubble of human influence as they jump to the next system. Past the ”skin” of the bubble where most of human interaction is, will be the dead and barren discarded planets, possibly dotted with the HQs of corporations that decide against periodically moving and rebuilding their main base on the frontlines. And somewhere in the center of the resource wasteland is the starting planet. So what will new players log into, a year down the road? Will it be an early game devoid of much if the playerbase; a newbie island of sorts? Will there be anything worth mining, to help them get on their feet? Perhaps periodically-spawning asteroids? And what of their trip to the bubble's edge, that would presumably hold most players, especially with destroyable warp gates?
Perhaps, if "Safe Zone" planets are peppered in throughout the galaxy, the game could just choose such a planet near other players as the current newbie spawn zone. This could ensure that new players are spawned where everyone else is. But a returning player could face the same issues, if they had last played months ago and the bubble has expanded without them. Returning players might have enough stock to keep going, and players on board their corporation vessel would be dragged along to the frontlines even while logged out, but neither of these can be assumed.