Hey folks! I’m all caught up on the current state of the thread now 
To answer a few questions I’ve seen come up:
- As has been mentioned above, the travel in and out of Exordium will consist of a normal stargate connecting to Yulai (which we expect to be the primary path most players use to leave and it will definitely be the primary way to enter) as well as some single-use per character shipcasters that lead to the FW War HQ systems for each faction (Mehatoor, Onnamon, Intaki, and Amo). The shipcasters will have ship restrictions that we can adjust as needed for balance, although we plan to start with a set of ship restrictions that allow players to use all the ships that are very common for new players (which includes T1 haulers). Recycling alts to use the shipcasters with T1 haulers would be technically possible, but we have a few ways of adjusting things if it becomes a problem including declaring that tactic against the rules and taking enforcement actions against heavy users, or if needed we can limit the allowed ship types further (but we’d only want to do that if it’s really needed, since it would have a detrimental impact on normal new player activities).
- We’re taking a similar “wait and see” approach to whether suicide ganking specifically targeting new players becomes a problem at the Manifest gate in Yulai. This is something we discussed internally from very early on in the design and we have some tools in our toolbox to respond if need be, ranging from changes to the new player griefing support page guidelines to some mechanical options that could make that specific chokepoint less vulnerable. This is another case where we don’t want to overreact ahead of time though and we’ll only take action if it turns out to be needed
- As the folks passing along messages from the discord noted above: we’re not changing the old starter systems or career agents in this expansion. The most important reason we’re leaving those untouched at this time is that we don’t want to disrupt the gameplay flow for folks who started playing right before the expansion (it would suck if you started your career agents in one system but when you came back a few days later you had to travel to another region to continue them). We aren’t promising that the existing career agents will stay put forever, but we have no plans to remove or move them in the forseeable future.
- Since it came up here, I’ll note that we’re not removing the ability to choose your player’s faction. Instead, we’re just decoupling the connection between which faction you’ve chosen and which starter system you appear in after the initial phase of the NPE missions. In the future we’re interested in exploring making potential changes to the way players choose their factions to let the players make a more informed and meaningful decision, but that exploration is potential work for the future not something for this expansion and it would still involve the player choosing their home starter empire.
- Concerns about farming of the content in safety (either with veteran characters or with new alts controlled by veterans) is very valid but it’s also something we’ve been planning for from the beginning of this design. Besides the lower rewards for content and higher taxes in this space which were mentioned in the blog, the plan includes updating the support page to make farming of the content in Exordium by veteran players specifically against the rules so we can warn or otherwise take action against players who do it enough that it becomes noticeable. There will be a popup when a character older than 30 days enters or logs on within this region that also lets them know that this is a space for new players and they’re welcome to come to interact positively with the new players but that they’re not allowed to use the space for farming or griefing.
Thanks for the feedback so far!