AlphaBuffalo

I was thinking that the 4 or so starting safe zones are places the people before you built. The arkship would have woken many people before you (the player) and who said these people didnt make small factions and safe zones for their command centers. You can even make it like EVE where the safe zones arent really safe zones but guarded zones where if you attack someone you will be targeted by turrets or something to protect the zone. I just dont want a situation where the player joins the game for the first time with nothing on them and the moment they walk outside the shield they are targeted by an spawn killing organization.

I agree the virtual sims can be the single player version of the game where players go to build blueprints. Also the ark should be indestructible because of lore, and simplicity. When players die, they respawn on the ark if they lost their base and everything else. I dont think players should be able to make safe zones though. Another idea is that there could be multiple premade safe zones that function as trading hubs and social areas where players can find people to join their group.

If it took 10,000 years to find a habitable planet, that would be that earth like planets are very rare. That being said, one the main concepts of this game is exploration and colonization. If players are to colonize other planets, how many of those planets will be earth like? How many different planet types will there be? How far out will each planet be from each other for each solar system?

I think there should be multiple safe zones, maybe 4 at most, make them all trade hubs and new player zones. But each new player should start with a small craft that can get them to a safe area outside safe zones because there will be a lot of people outside the starting zones waiting. Another idea is to have players start in a random area outside the safe zones so people cant camp them.