Been playing for something like 8 hours straight now. Heh. here`s my two bits:
The hull point bug needs to be fixed...no matter what kind of ship I have, I can`t repair it beyond 10 HP.
Weapons: It would be nice if the ship weapons were more balanced. As it is, I don`t see any reason not to just buy particle beams. Maybe some with longer range but lower damage, some with shorter range and higher damage, and some with high range and damage but limited ammo.
Personal weapons: Maybe its just me, but I want close combat weapons. When I`m exploring the subterrainian depth of a nameless planet and get cornered by a pack of huge, viscous mammals, its time to put away the gauss rifles and pull out the chain swords and power axes. FOR THE EMPEROR! wait, wrong game. but still.
Names: Just seeing "reptile" all the time is kinda annoying. How about letting the player name a new species, and then having that name pop up when they see an example of that species again?
Persistant worlds- How about letting people decide if they want to continue exploring the world where their last character died? The fact that they would start with some knowledge of what was on the map would be balanced by the fact that a lot of the resources would have been harvested by the former character. It would be fun to try to defeat the sandworms time after time, with more and more stranded ships piling up on the surface of the planet....
Thats it for now. Great game! I, who am about to die, (ie I`m starting a new prospector.) Salute you!