I like economy games. You know, buy some stuff, produce things, sell it, profit. So an idea came to my mind: how about a mod that changes the game concept completely, so it will be not about reaching the tech level to send a rocket, but about launching rockets to export goods and earn money to buy technologies?
So here is how I see it...
1) The character is a freelancing merchant arrived to the Nauvis - the hostile planet rich with resources. Landed his space shuttle there with some basic startup items required to bootstrap the basic facility. The goal is to make profit by sending shipments via rocket launches to the Galactic Market Hub.
2) The profit is measurable in "Credits" which are generated by the rocket silo when a shipment is sent (similar to white science flasks generated when satellite launched in vanilla game). Shipments of different kind generate different amount of credits, so sending high-end products is more profitable.
3) Technologies cost credits instead of science flasks. The idea is that we buy techs in exchange for earned credits and download the data. No more labs - "Transmission Hubs" instead. Total rework on the tech tree is required.
So we start with many basic recipes available (burner mining drills and furnaces, assemblers, splitters, refinery and so on) that are sufficient to build a silo and send a rocket right from the start (hypothetically), but everything else is optional - electric mining drills, electric furnaces, robots, artillery and whatever makes our life easier - those techs require credits to be bought. Credits earned from cargo shipments sent by rockets.
Total overhaul, just a concept. Food for brains.
