I keep having this thought pop up into my head about how they could add a FTL type adventure into the offline mode and how incredible that sort of thing could be.
Just take out the ship management from FTL but keep the perma-death, the random events that occur throughout your trip, the hazards in space that you may run into, the hostile aliens you run across and the general sense of " anything can happen on any next move ". With how this game is structured, I could see a scenario like:
The game puts you on a random planet on a random solar system in a random spot of the galaxy. You are given a general idea of where to go to reach the center of the universe. Your first task will be, just like in the normal game, gather resources to upgrade your suit and build up your ship to give you the ability to travel and to survive the more hostile regions of space. The different suits could be like, an Oxygen suit allowing you to survive underwater. A suit made from volcanic rock that allows you to survive harsh temperature fluctuations that may occur on some planets. A suit that survives harsh cold weather. Things of that nature. Ships could also have unique special abilities like. One ship may be extremely powerful but light on armor and doesn't warp far. So you can be worry free of being raided by pirates, but you'll be trudging through the galaxies at a snails pace, with each move adding just another possibility of some really bad ( or really good ) random event occuring to throw you off pace and off course. Some ships could be heavy in cargo space, allowing you to bring along a ton of extra resources with you. Other ships could be specially fitted to survive harsh space conditions. Some ships could be best suited for intergalactic travel across massive distances.
As you begin your journey, you can only warp. So you have to carefully plan your next move through the galaxy. Some parts of the universe will be far more hazardous then others. Some with electromagnetic disturbances that could destroy your ship in the middle of a warp, tossing you into a random direction and crashing you onto any random planet that may be in the universe. You don't know what may be on the planet you land on. Could be a paradise world full of lush life and just an insanely rich ecosystem. Or it could be a nightmare world, full of lush life and an insanely rich ecosystem but filled with ultra aggressive carnivores fighting for supremacy over the food chain. You just being another meal to be had.
Since the whole journey to the center is perma-death. You are constantly in a battle to stay alive. Constantly in a struggle to keep your ship together so you can keep doing warps closer and closer to the center, but the trials and tribulations becoming more and more harrowing the closer you get. You'll have moments of supreme triumph as a warp is lucky and you land on a planet with a super powerful ship that can blast other ships to pieces in moments and warp you hundreds of light years into the right direction, or you could warp into a mess. Something that gets you killed, forced to try again and think back on what went wrong.
See where I'm going with the idea? With the way the game is built, putting different modes like this offline could be doable and could be extremely fun and challenging and rewarding and epic to SHARE.
Truth be told. With everything we do know about the game up to this point. This could be where Murray is headed in the gameplay realm anyway. For example when you head into one of those pillars that warps you to another pillar on another planet, you have no clue whatsoever what is on the other side. Could be riches and spoils, could be a giant dinosaur staring you in the grill with its mouth open. And you will also be without a ship or resources at that point.
The reward to reaching the center? Communion. The center is this Garden of Eden like Galaxy of thousands of stars that is almost like a playground for the players who manage to reach this point. Perhaps with a central hub type solar system where players can land and communicate and see other players flying around up in the stars or whatever. This being the only spot where players can see each others names. So perhaps you can at this point gather together a dozen bodies and head off into the galaxy together to go find riches and danger and just see what is out there. But do it together.