TLDR: Existing infrastructure would help new players more than hinder them thanks to no built-in GPS and other QoL features that players can make themselves



There has been talks about wipe or not to wipe after EA ends and the game goes full release. The main talking points I came across for a wipe would be established factions oppressing new players, depleted resources, limited opportunities for the new players.



So, what about the first, established factions oppressing new ppl? The thing is that first, there is a dev safezone at the starter locations, so newbies can build up in peace until they are at a comfortable level to venture out. Second, I'd wager the same would happen even after a wipe because established factions have experience and probably numbers to pool their resources.

What about depleting resources? The starter safezone will continuosly expand if the asteroids inside are being mined out, new stations will be constructed at its edges to expand it.

Limited opportunities? We just cant tell at this point, it may actually end up that new players have limited opportunities, but if that is the case, the game should not go into full release, because eventually, the same thing will happen to the released game, pushing away new players, which would slowly strangle the game. Essentially, if new players would have very limited opportunities because of the maturity of the game world, the game is not ready to be released.

Of course, a lot of these things can only be ascertained once the game is in EA, and has been in EA for long enough, and also, other problems may arise along the way.



Why not wipe?

The main arguement is the already existing infrastructure. And no, NOT because it would hurt to lose all that progress (although it definitely would), but because all that infrastructure could immensely help newbies. Starbase is a hardcore game. You dont have a GPS system like in Space Engineers that magically tells you your position in the game world, or anything even remotely similar. If you go out mining, for example, and lose sight of where you are, you can get lost, with no hope to return other than self-destruct. That will be a major quitting point for a lot of players. There are already projects in planning to establish a set of "GPS satellites" that could be used to calculate a position in space, and have a reference point. There are also mapping projects. Shipyard companies.



The thing with the Shipyard part is that ppl will tend to buy ships that have these features like a map for the ship with the ship's location and the locations of major stations and other POIs marked, a ship with a feature that points you in the direction of your destination station, maybe even autopilots you there, maybe even warns you and possibly automatically redirects you to a nearby refueling station if you dont have enough fuel / reactor rods.

Point is, ships with these sort of QoL features will tend to sell better than ships without. So one could expect that the ship market will consist of mostly ships that have these features. And guess what ship newbies will buy? I'd imagine the one that says NEWBIE FRIENDLY in as big and bright letters as possible, especially if the playerbase and the devs manage to communicate to the newbies just how difficult this game can be without these QoL features on their ships.



If the game world is wiped after EA, it will take a considerable amount of time until mass production of ships can be set up again, enough time that most of the ppl who only bought the game after launch / launch campaign would miss out on these and potentially give up due to the difficulty.