Progress with Loop
According to the new roadmap, I planned to finish the new game loop by the end of February. This, however, turned out to be a much bigger task than I had expected. Therefore, this update will be delayed a couple of weeks, but it seems fair to give you an overview of what is coming.
The most important new feature is the spaceship hub. Eventually, it should become a place full of activities and upgrades (mostly planned for the future "home" iteration), but at first, it will be a location to receive quests and choose the next mission planet.
The final layout still requires work, but I am getting happy with the feel of this space, which is made better by the new ray tracing-based lighting (although it could also run in real-time, I have decided to render it once and only update when the lighting is changing to reduce the GPU load).
The new loop will be around shorter extraction missions where the player needs to collect the required resources, fill up the landing pod (with limited capacity) and head back to the spaceship. I also want to increase the risk and tension of those mining loops(at least in the later missions), but I'm not sure what would be the most fun way to do that. Maybe a mechanic that would pollute the planet when the player stays there for too long (although it does not feel too believable).
This update will also change the way the game is created and saved. Since many progression-related features will be initially removed without an immediate replacement system, I will keep the current Blastronaut loop as a legacy mode for anyone who prefers the single long mining run.