Hey Everyone, I wanted to take some time to outline a little of what I'm thinking will be in the final release of the game that isn't currently present in the demo itself (though some of this might make it into the demo in the next week).
The question has come up a few times in different areas, and I love seeing the interest in the demo and the future of the game. So I'm going to do my best to summarize the plan here for everyone.
Thanks for checking out the demo and for your feedback! The demo and the full game are still likely to continue evolving for a little while longer. So I'm still taking in all the suggestions I can find and trying to prioritize whatever will work with the design, sounds fun, and is of course possible given the time frame :).
Broad Feature Plans
Advanced Technologies will be available starting around the mid-game (about the time Flagship construction is underway most likely). These technologies will focus more on warping the different systems that unlock as you play, think of them less like stat and rate bonuses, although there will be some of those, and more like gameplay modifiers that further diverge one session from another.
Rival / Endgame Factions appear near the end of the game once exploration is almost maxed out on the game board. I won't completely spoil how this will work, but it represents a kind of final push before you've conquered everything (and can start a new session with new challenge modifiers and other options).
Prestige System
There is a prestige system in the final game, which represents sort of abandoning the current galaxy and warping out to a new one retaining some of your power (thematically). Some of this might make it into the demo, but I've kept it out for now because I want to make sure it is representative of how it will actually work in the full game and it's just not ready yet. But there will be one.
Customizable Play
The faction window currently plays double duty for the game setup options. This only has one option (technically two but one is secret / hidden in the demo), but will eventually be a first-class feature in the game that will support all sorts of customizations for your gameplay. Options include things like influencing the actual galaxy generation, difficulty settings, opting into or out of features, etc.
There are some other things too but these are the major systems and features in the full game that aren't in the current build of the demo. If you have any suggestions or feedback feel free to reach out on Discord / Reddit, I can't promise everything will make it into launch but there's a good chance a lot of additional suggestions can be incorporated into upcoming content.