Okay, fiddling with the game more I now know what this game needs.
1) NO STUPID LINEAR PROGRESSION! Remember Prospector Roguelike? When you land on a planet, you should not know "hey it's tier 1 world so I can kill birds and pokemons". There should be a chance for a quick death or an easy stroll.
2) Monster system needs to be reworked. It may sound like a good idea but in the end all creatures are the SAME in terms of combat, with a few rare special attacks. And bodyparts determine only looks, not functions/abilities.
3) We need more hazard types on planets! Meteorites, acid rains, pools of acid and lava, cracks which reach the core of moons etc.
4) To accomodate it, the armor and damage system of player and monsters should be reworked AGAIN. It shouldn't be "I had 50 hp, now I have 2000 due to armor, durr". Armor should be actual protection, and there should be different negative effects/ailments which can come from different damage types so you would want to evade wounds as much as you want. Armor would be specific to its role, i.e. spacesuit = protection vs. small asteroids and heat/cold, radiation suit = poison and rad resistance etc.
There's a lot to talk about.
There's a lot more to add, but even if they stay at this "super linear way" they plan to do it, I bet there's going to be a big modpack which fixes it.