After taking far longer than I had intended, I finally have a good plan for ending Early Access. And it involves having 1 or 2 more updates in Early Access. If there's just one more update left within Early Access, then it's going to be the Modding Update (v0.3.x) followed by the Release (v1.0.x). If there will be two more updates within Early Access, then the first of these updates will be the Modding Update (v0.3.x) followed by the Multiplayer Update (v0.4.x) before finally getting to the Release (v1.0.x).
Modding Update (v0.3.x)
Currently, I'm working on the Modding Update. This update will give an official means for users to add their own content and game modes to the game, without changing the vanilla experience. And I am very close to having a solution for Solar Lander to load mods and make them playable. I will leave the details to future devlogs though. But here's what to expect if the Modding Update is the last update before release, and what to expect if the will be one more update after the Modding Update before release.
Either way, here's the bare minimum of what to expect from the Modding Update, with the rest of the features I originally planned for the Modding Update being added eventually before release.
Create your own spacecraft and possibly non-spacecraft physics bodies.
Write your own game modes.
Publish your mod to the Steam Workshop or host it elsewhere.
Make mods that reference other mods.
Create control profiles that can be shared through the Steam Workshop or hosted elsewhere.
Add your own music to the game (I currently have no plans on adding any default music ever).
Built-in level timers for stuff like speed-running.
Last Update Before Release
If the Modding Update is the last update before release, then it'll have multiplayer built-in. It will also have all of the features related to modding that I want to include before release, including:
Write your own flight computer programs.
Write your own terrain generators.
Make complex scene graphs with animations and state switches.
Make multiplayer game modes.
Add your own planets.
Add atmospheres to your planets.
Second-to-Last Update Before Release
If the Modding Update is not the last update before release, then there will be a number of features missing from the modding update that will be included in eventually before the release. These include:
No ability to make any type of scene graph.
No multiplayer game modes.
Probably no planets with atmospheres.
Modding Tools
The Modding Update will contain at least one tool from the moment the Modding Update hits the Beta branch: A command line utility to convert MSH files to Solar Lander models. Details on that will be in a future devlog. As the modding update progresses, more tools will be added, mainly along the lines of making model files for the game.
A second tool that I intend to include from the moment the Modding Update hits the Beta branch is a tool for packaging your mods. Although this will probably later be included within the game itself, especially for publishing to the Steam Workshop. If the mod packaging tool isn't included from the start, it will be included by the time the Modding Update hits the main branch.
Multiplayer Update (v0.4.x)
If including multiplayer functionality in the Modding Update will make it too big, then multiplayer will get its own update. If this happens, then the Multiplayer Update will also get some of the features that the Modding Update didn't get. How many features it gets in relation to modding depends on a few things that I haven't decided on yet. But here's what the Multiplayer Update will focus on specifically:
Multiplayer game modes implemented exclusively through mods.
A mod will be added to the game featuring a couple of example game modes.
Possibility of using peer-to-peer and server-client architectures.
For servers, the ability kick and ban players, whitelist players and/or require passwords.
Release (v1.0.x)
The 1.0 release will contain all of the features that may have been left out of the previous updates. In addition, there is a master list of features that the community has requested, and I intend to implement most of those. If the community feature requests don't get into any of the other two Early Access updates, they'll also be included in the 1.0 release. In addition, I want to include the following:
A built-in tutorial mode, with either a voiceover, popup boxes explaining things, or both.
A built-in sandbox mode that has menus for adding and removing objects from the scene, and changing object state.
A built-in story mode that's more complex than just landing on barren planets and jumping back into orbit.
A system to switch to/from "on-rails" orbits when it time acceleration to improve time acceleration performance.
Eliminate all unnecessary elements from the game's player loop, further enhancing performance.
A better Command Module AI that will make it much harder to crash the vehicle.
More levels in the progression mode.
Achievements for the Tutorial and Story game modes.
Possibly have achievements for multiplayer.
To summarize, the Early Access updates will focus mainly on adding functionality to the game. But the release will focus mainly on adding content and whatever features are leftover from the Early Access updates to the game. Some of the items that are listed here for the release may actually be added in the Modding or Multiplayer updates.
Post Release Updates
I currently have no plans for any post-release updates other than bug fixes and security patches. But I am looking at the possibility of releasing Solar Lander on other game stores. Mainly, once the Release comes out, I will consider this game finished and will move on to making other games and projects.