I had thought that the scary idea was the thought that SC would be in eternal alpha. I now realize the scary thought is that the way things are is “almost done”.

What if mining is, more-or-less, complete?

Same with medical, and salvage, and mercenary, and bounty hunting?

What if engineering is the same whack-a-mole we see in the computer bunker missions?

What if hacking and data running is too?

What if ships aren’t going to get any more interactable? Whether a ship is dirty or clean is a design choice. The HVAC systems spewing fog always will, chairs will remain unmovable, items on counters will continue to be decorations that cannot be changed.

I’m not saying literally nothing would be different; but what if it’s “not that much”? If the trash on the floor in stations remains bullet-proof, immobile, part of the mesh? What if NPC interactions never get much more complex than they are? What if AI behavior is exactly what we already see on high FPS servers? What if bounty hunting adds non-lethals, cuffs, and a place to drop prisoners… but that’s it. What if hacking looks like scanning does now with an added “click continue”?

If the down-side of release being 20 years away was not being sure I’d see it; the up-side was that the games ambitions far outstripped what I have today and (succeed or fail) that was the aim point we would continue to work for…. but if we are nearing 1.0, as suggested, then the game is in a “largely ready” state… and that’s… less than I’d have hoped for.

If there’s one big takeaway you should have from our endeavor to be transparent, it’s that we’re not afraid to pave our own path. While we’ll certainly reach significant milestones and major releases, our goal isn’t to neatly wrap up our universe and declare it finished. The ‘verse, with all its contents, will continually evolve and pioneer.