I appreciate it. Though, i disagree with your points. if im interpreting you right, you are basically saying that the game needs to be more creative, and less combative. Pve, with pvp elements.
Do you think this will attract a larger player base? do you think twitch streamers, and youtubers will get alot of content with doubling down on the creative side, and trying to be more restrictive towards pvp? Why do you think our playerbase is down to 1500 today? People can currently join the game, and spend months building whatever they want. Do you think that faster travel, and easier resource gathering will be the answer? and just bar the pvp side? If this was your game, in detail, what would this game be like?
of course, we are waiting to see what Lauri has in store for pvp. I personally believe it will make or break the game. Because if this creativity alone, was really such a big deal, the hype would be so big for the game right now because that has been the focus of the recent updates. Dont get me wrong, i love creativity. Half the reason im here. Just looking for the other half. Today they just released a ton of content for creative purposes. check out the player base number. we will wait and see what happens. But, i do believe the pvp element will make or break this game. if im wrong, i have no problem admitting it. and ill do it in this forum, because my passion for this argument is not of pride, or grief, but a game ive wanted to play since i was a kid. So, we shall see.
one more thing. you sound like youd like a game called "starship evo" its been out on EA for a while now. you can build so many things, and they look better than this game, there is more freedom with shapes. so everything is so sleek.. Ive seen them build little cities, huge ships, mechs, hover tanks, hover cars, battle suits, you name it, with tons of detail. That community has made amazing things. its mindblowing. there is no pvp. at all. there is private servers you can spawn in pirates to attack in game atm. most of it is just building. (i dont play it, but i followed until i saw a conversation in their discord on this game) thing is though.. there are only 7 people online right now. maybe because its all not one server? maybe they just want more content in things to do with pve? it just makes me think...
Twitch streamers gaining views or not off of a game is not necessarily the games' fault or a solid measure for a game's success, for instance Eve Online numbers are not fantastic at all but Minecraft, which I find absolutely boring has absolutely bonkers numbers that blows all other hardcore PVP survival games out of the water combined. Both Minecraft and Eve are highly successful but you can see Eve is just not comparing to Minecraft in terms of audience. Just different groups of people, a lot of younger gamers play Minecraft and older gamers prefer MMOs, and I am willing to bet there are not as much older gamers as the younger ones.
You can sort of tell this by looking at console sales, you can combine both the latest generation of Playstaton and Xbox sales and multiply them by 4 and its still less than the number of Switch consoles sold. Nintendo targets younger audience and makes bank, no matter how ridiculous and overpriced most of their games are. Fortnight, Apex, etc. had similar success because of the target audience.
What about Starbase target audience? Well, most of us are people that can sit down and wrack our brains over spreadsheets like in Eve and the SSC and mind numbingly mine rocks all day. Most folks don't have this kind of patience and if you don't then you are the minority here, yes really, that's why we only have around 2k average players, everyone like you left or are on hiatus till their gameplay loop gets properly implemented.
Most gamers do not like space games or MMOs, just as I don't like Minecraft or even space engineers. I got hooked on shipbuilding from DU, but only in an MMO setting as I prefer MMO above all other genres. The Ark/Rust/DayZ kind of survival games are the kind I absolutely abhor.
My creations can easily reach other random players here, and I have made a lot of credits this way in Starbase already. For me personally, its cool that other people use my designs. This is why I play, if you are really dissatisfied with the game currently take a break and come back later, PVP will be improved upon over time, its just that what is here now is not complete or a proper loop for PVP, just some barebones PVE loop and mostly friendly PVP fun unless you want to sit on a gate all day and camp.
I am only one person and this is what I like, I am still here because the game is still fun for me. Evidently there are many like me here. You have to decide what you like and look at the game for what it is currently, it's going to get better for PVP and PVE but I doubt it's going to be geared towards toxic Ark/Rust-like one sided offline raiding nonsense.
Starbase is by no means perfect but shifting heavily to PVP with no NPC to prepare newbs for combat is a tough ask being a game that requires SIGNIFICANT time investment to even get to PVP ready and the PVP risks are HIGH. The game is clearly creative/PVE heavy foundation and that is where the bulk of the current playerbase is, intended or not. Until more game loops and content gets added, especially PVE side, the playerbase will not grow, PVP in a game like this heavily depends on playerbase size. The dedicated PVP playerbase for games like this is SMALL, just check other space sims that try to do MMO themes, like Elite Dangerous for instance. Most their players just play private to enjoy the game for what it is and explore, this is why they still have players.
BONUS suggestion: Remove asteroid collision damage and far more players will venture outside safezone into the belt, as we all know repairing is just a nightmare after a big collision lol. This would not reduce the use of things like asteroid collision script as you will still need those to keep heading if you are venturing far out into the deep belt because collisions do change your heading.