Rumors flying that the ARG is starting up again and that a 1.5 (not 1.4) release is on the way.

Figures. I just got my balance up to one billion units and now I'll have to start over. :-(

On the other hand, the early parts of the game where disaster is seconds away, every Thamium9 plant is precious, and that 1703 unit "stock transfer" is really helpful can be the most fun. So ;-)

Am still using my save from day 1 of the first release with no problems ever encountered with saves.

Although some of these problems have since been eliminated just to make sure I do a couple of things when updating to a new version (or moving to a new galaxy):

1. Backup saves.
2. Empty the SHADERCACHE folder.
3. I usually forget but emptying the temporary files folder is also a good idea.
4. Am also no longer concerned with accumulating space bucks (about 1.4 billion) so do not collect much of anything to sell and have ceased farming except that I may keep a ready stock of a limited number of plants to avoid having to search.
5. When there is a major update coming out I also disassemble my existing base to avoid dealing with adverse conditions when the universe is reshuffled and base planet becomes too extreme although so far the changes to the planet's environment have not been that extreme for me. My current base is empty as I have no reason to return.
6. When switching galaxies I even break down anything on my freighter as I found my storage containers to have been disassembled for me.
7. Reset key binding to default (hasn't a problem for over a year but that cause major hassles for some of the first updates).
8. Disassembling base also helps to reduce the annoyances with plants or components that have been renamed or now have a different blueprint although so far that was a 1.1 to 1.2 annoyance.
9. I wait a week or so after a major update to give time for the "emergency" patches to deal with unanticipated problems and then am selective about which version I first upgrade to. Example, when the exploit to stack certain items to 100 was eliminated I avoided those patches until I had accumulated enough wealth to keep me going with the new changes like freighters and extra ships.

Roger roger. I understand that there are ways to maintain the saved games and one's progress over the course of the rolling updates. Yours seems pretty well thought out.

But, say with the Atlas Rises update, there were enough new elements to the game that the "have to start over" bit was in order to start fresh and play them through from the beginning. Then, as now, I was sitting pretty comfortably. I don't really need another freighter and, while a couple of high-slot haulers on board might come in handy, I'm pretty much in coasting mode now and trips back to the farm or the fusion ignitor workshop are just to keep things humming along. So if HG does introduce enough of a change to ATLAS's simulation in 1.4 or 1.5, it's back to the original crash site...

I am just still hoping they put the missile launcher on the pre-order ship! It seems ridiculous that a bonus for pre-ordering now misses something in the basic ship! What's the point?

I too have heard the rumors about the upcoming 1.5. My only "fear" is that it might be focused primarily in multiplayer stuff. And not much new for the core / single player game itself. I hope im wrong!

Personally, i dont care about multiplayer. What i would really like to see, is some serious debuging (no more falling thu the ground, missions trfiggers not executing, etc), some optimizations like less object popping, and for Christ sake, give us some instrumentation improvements.
A decent compass (with 4 cardinal points and heading reading in degrees), a planetary map that records the position of discovered places, a galaxy map that is actually usefull. With features like searching a system / planet by name, a sidelist that allows you to select systems, etc.

I would also like to see features that make the universe feel more... "alive". Like the aliens actually walking and doing stuff instead of just standing / sitting there like statues, greater diversity in animal (fauna) sounds, etc.

Better base constructions without limits (or higher limits at least) would be nice too. I know you can change or even eliminate the base building limit by editing the config files, but in my experience at least, doing so seemed to make the game less stable. I increased the limit from 2000 5000 and started experiencing CTDs way more often than before. Adjusted the base, reduced the limit to 3000, and game became more stable again. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but it seemed related.
Hope they allow us to make bigger bases. Heck, multiple bases would be awesome!