Fulgora balance: Larger starting island, smaller distant islands

[HeliGungir]

TL;DR

Fulgora's difficulty curve is backwards.

Why?

Fulgora generates a small starting island, and islands become larger with distance to spawn. But players start poorly-equipped to build in limited space in the early game, and become better-equipped as we unlock advanced machines and start making higher-quality accumulators, machines, power poles, etc.

We unlock better tools, but as we grow outward, the islands become bigger, too. Indeed, veteran players have learned to ignore the starting island and explore to find a bigger island, and sometimes even recommend this strategy to new players looking for advice.

What?

So I think the starting island should be on the large side, and average island size should trend towards smaller sizes with distance from the spawn. Maybe something like 20% large, 60% medium, 20% small islands near the spawn; falling to 2% large, 28% medium, 70% small islands at 50+ chunks from the spawn.

[mmmPI]

But then it means you start in the "best place" and the more you explore the worse it gets, that would be backward

[HeliGungir]

Islands might be smaller, but scrap richness still goes up. Your starting island will still run out of scrap.

[Alfonse215]

There are no barriers to exploration on Fulgora. No enemies. No impassable seas. You can go anywhere from the moment you land.

Your "starting island" is wherever you choose for it to be. Indeed, the place where you touchdown is just a spit of land that has an alien lightning rod on it so that you don't immediately die. You're not expected to set up shop there.