Planets and ships

[Psychophobe]

I saw with one of the newest release that the planets have moving atmospheres on them and clouds and suchlike, this looks very cool, I really like this.

And it made me think - the map has the planet marked and a circle marked as well, so as the planet is just a background image and doesn't get in the way of the game objects, could it be relatively easy to make the planet actually orbit, to say set a time of 10-14 our days or something for the planets we see to orbit their corresponding suns? just moving the image around the centre of the sun position on the level map ?

Just an idea but would be pretty cool.

Also, there are a lot of merchant ships and lots of pirate ships but not much else - can you add other NPC non-hostile craft such as private transports, tourist ships, like cars on a road, there are all sorts of different ones, but they're all "cars".

Just some ideas 

[Lurler]

Well, actual orbiting for planets wouldn't really add a lot to the game, but would take time to implement... time that we rather spend working on the gameplay elements. That is why we haven't done what you describe yet

As for other NPC - I agree.