Stole this from some breakdown I saw posted elsewhere.
Procedural vs. Handcrafted: - Once they figured out a good way to just make 1 good procedural planet, it's not as hard as you think to expand that to 1000 planets. They consider the fully procedural planets to be optional. Maybe you just like the view or want to set up a base for example. - They will make it obvious which planets have handcrafted areas and which are fully procedural. - They've done more handcrafting than in any other game they've done.
Story: - Over 200,000 lines of dialogue now (last number they gave was 150,000). - Constellation is still exploring and figuring out mysteries of universe, looking for old earth artifacts. Start of the main story is uncovering artifacts of unknown origin. - Main story is a bit longer than previous games. 30-40 hours main quest. Not including factions or anything else. - Will be doing extra DLC down the line. Very excited for what modders will be able to do as well. - 4 main cities in game. New Atlantis is biggest, and biggest city they've built in any game.
Space Flight: - They're big fans of old space sims. Ship has power systems, 3 different weapon systems, engines, shields, grav drive (FTL). - Pace of the dogfighting is not twitchy. Compared it to Mech Warrior in terms of pace, systems, and power. - You can disable, board, and dock with other ships. - You can steal ships. - There is smuggling. - No you can't fly down to planet manually. You pick a point to land. Early decision they made. Chose to have a separation between surface gameplay and space gameplay.
Character Creation: - 20-ish character backgrounds to choose from. Affects dialogue and options in the game.