Piracy is just pre-emptive salvage

10,000,000 was definitely too low, what should we aim for?? Also, name the ship!

I vote sunfish for the ship name, it's absolutely tiny when it hatches and grows to absolutely ridiculous size. It also might lure you into a bit of a different ship shape because it looks like a random disc swimming vertically through the seas.

The thing that makes spotting someone in space difficult is the fact depth perception is destroyed and they would be extremely tiny, you'll experience that in SE OFTEN when there isn't waypoints from beacons broadcasting all the time. You'd need to be able to scan them, plot their course, and overlay the course on a hud so you could see it. Without all of that they'd be invisible to you until both of you are within weapons range. Also itd be even more terifying as youd see them coming but unless youre faster than they are... you couldnt escape from them. Just like piracy in the old times. You could see pirate ships coming from miles away but were powerless to do anything other than run and hope your ship was faster.

In Australia, Ibis are kind of a pest and commonly referred to as 'Bin Chicken' which is just perfect.

If no one has mentioned yet, the Zone Chips are used to power shields. The shields consume a certain amount of Zone chips per day based on the shields size.

This might be a dumb question but: What's your opinion of having your patrons make a space engineer run? Like having them make up a mod list/survival challenge with some sort of "end goal" for you?

Ship name idea: Mostly ambitious

Ship name: Bin Chicken

Someone might have already said that, but there is a "Auto pickup" mod for mining. All it does is picking up the ores if you use your drill. Its one of the most important mods to me, as i hate picking up everything by hand every time. That said, I dont know its influence on performance, but I don't expect it to be big.

just had an even better name than my last suggestion: name it "Not Fit For Purchase"

10 Million is actually super easy to get if you can quite literally get a hold of an enemy ship, and then just sell all of the parts of it. You can probably reach 10 mil in one episode because I've done it in VANILLA while starting with nothing. What I would say would be a better number is to get 1 Billion credits because that takes much longer. Also there are basically 3 different NPC types, which all sell different things. Components, Ores, or even entire Ships. Their faction name will give a clue to what type they are. The best one IMO is Ores, as you can buy the raw materials and then use them to either sell it back for more, or to make stuff. (You can buy raw ore, refine it with max yield modules, and then sell it back for profit.)

The full-ice asteroids DO exist. My current playthrough has me living inside a hollowed out one in the microgravity of high atmosphere of the earth-like planet. VERY useful for power and very pretty too.

28:40

33:57

Geobraking? Nah

The prices and availability fluctuate at the stations, about every 20 minutes or so. Some things get cheaper, others pricier, some become unavailable. There are typically about 4 cycles, so if you saw something for less, or it disappeared, check back later.

I would love a salvage playthrough. Maybe a floating shipyard with a heavy tug moving hulls around to be emptied out, and a little corner with a bunch of useful stuff and a scrapping pit for the hollowed out hulls.

maybe name it Celestial Koi, there's an old japanese legend where a school of koi fish swim to a tori gate to try and become dragons, only for all but one to turn back when they see it's on top of a waterfall, the lone koi who still decided to try working tirelessly to reach the top and eventually being rewarded for his efforts

Call the ship The Mustard Seed. The smallest seed that grows into the biggest herb.