OK, that makes sense. In fact I kind of figured that probably happens in the main game, which is mainly why I spoilered it. I just found it a little amusing that I was talking to some alien that wanted about 4 million for an upgrade spaceship, and then I just get handed … that. And seriously, I need to think about how this changes things for me. Do I even need planet-side bases anymore? I am sure I’ll need to go mining and looking for stuff on the planet but a base on a planet just seems kind of redundant.
But yeah, I’m going to see if I can work through this expedition then go back to my main save and progress a bit more in my main game. I confess I’m doing a bit of speedrunning in the expedition, not really bothering to learn alien languages, not really doing much mining except to cover my immediate needs. And even still I’m swimming in resources from hitting milestones - it may be tough going back to the vanilla game!