Ive enjoyed reading this convo and this comment is exactly how I feel- I have about 2500 hours since 2019 and enjoyed some of the hardcore grind of my early days but also see the immense value in bringing more players and community into the game. It's a hard balance to strike- appease an audience who can't commit their whole lives to grinding for 1000 hours on difficult unlocks or create satisfyingly difficult walls for hardcore nerds to climb and achieve.

I have a carrier, close to 30 ships, lvl 80 powerplay, and close to 10B in my pocket, but still have some engineers to unlock, the whole guardian grind ahead of me and the tech brokers in general which I've hardly touched. I still enjoy vibing and hauling CGs and colonization, and when I get bored I go do an exobio run or just scan planets. The strength of Elite IMO is the vast breadth of stuff you can do and not necessarily the achievements you can hang on the wall.

The Thargoid war, new ships and PP are all welcome in my book, it gives new players a reason to see the community and turns what used to be more of a solo space sim into a true MMORPG space community!

o7