few extra stuff:
Devs decided against a galaxy completion percentage meter because it would remain hopelessly small.
The map has multiple zoom levels, the furthest one shows the entire galaxy. Next one allows you to fly through the stars and choose ones to scan. Scanning a star shows info on the solar system like if you may find special resources, how many planets. If this system has been discovered you see extra info like what class the space station is and which planets have been explored. You can zoom to planetary level next and if the planet was discovered you will see the marks of interest that were found.
Sean murray, a dev, talks multiplayer. The map will show where your friends are and there maybe an in game messaging system but that is all for now. The first time you see another player is the first time you will realize what your character looks like "i think we will surprise people in terms of how they look." he says you only see them in a suit so you still don't know what is inside, "it still won't answer for people whether you are an alien or whether you are human or what you look like."
hauling resources from one system to another can be profitable but you need to calculate how much fuel you are wasting to see if it is worth it.
No building of ships you can only buy what you see. So if you see a ship you like you can follow it and buy it at a trading post/station.
Various factions in the galaxy keep track of your actions and may respond with love or aggression depending on those actions.
Some trading posts have specific upgrades. Some stock lower level items, other high quality ones. So to upgrade something you need to locate the correct kind of trading post. Data from other players will help identify these. Otherwise you need to look around the points of interest and hope you find one.
Upgrades to three categories are available, suit, weapon and ships. Suit and weapons can be permanently upgraded. Ships cannot, you have to buy ships with whatever upgrades you want. Upgrades come in a scale of quality from 1 to 5.
Here is a partial list of upgrades:
Ships - shields, laser beams, plasma shot, rapid fire shots, energy torpedo, wing (maneuverability), hull (additional stats shows if it allows ships to land in toxic areas, etc.), engine, hyperdrive, cargo space (also fuel), cloaking
suit - shields, resource capacity, jetpack, air hazard, liquid hazard (defense against toxic, radioactive, etc)
weapon - laser beam, energy shot, plasma grenade, scan distance, scan type (some stuff cant be scanned until upgraded)
there is a shared common player database showing all animals and planet life discovered.
The malevolent force robots are on some planets. Sorry about that guys.
The are ancient robots left behind by who knows what. They are a constant, they will be different types but they will act the same way, you can use tactics you learn to defeat them. They describe it like halo and its main types of enemies. "we discovered we needed something like that in the game. We're still experimenting with this quite a bit."
no early access or betas, they want it to be "finished" when it comes out.
Ship combat weapons have different uses. Lasers eat shields, plasmas melt hulls, torpedoes are super powerful but slow. You have to manage cooldowns, no ammo.
The portals need special weapon types to open, like a door in metroid. No clue what is on the other side, you cant take your ship. The goal is to explore as far as you can before needed to run back through the portal to safety.
The center of the galaxy according to the dev "in some ways its like a beginning. I am hoping it is a nice moment for them that they actually feel like not sharing..."