^it's not much of a penalty, I guess... granted, I've felt pretty naked so far, I lost like 80-90% of my tech, but getting the computer parts back help out...
but TBH I guess it's kinda fun learning new systems and putting in new exciting tech =p
... just I've been staying very very close to my starship until I got all my old shield tech back haha
made a few mistakes too... I had tons of plutonium, iron, etc saved up from before... so, I went flying to my old home planet to see how it changed, and then realized halfway warping there I couldn't refuel either my Thrusters (and later at a space station, that I couldn't fill up my Launchers -- good thing I didn't land on the ground haha)
People, is everyone clicking L3 in options screen (On ps4, at least) and disabling the option there, too? Can't remember what it's called, but it was a separate thing than just choosing a Solo game.
yeah, I turned off the multiplayer option or whatever it was called, and even base sharing haha. people kept joining. their names disappear from the player list but they still appear in the game world (first as an icon and then as a player once I flew over).
otherwise, not sure... but I'm 100% positive it was turned off, I checked multiple times and I've since checked the live stream too lol. I recorded the entire 6 hours and there was like a new guy joining every 30-60 minutes... and I kept checking my options, too (clearly set to Off). and also the pvp ;p
it did seem to happen less after the first 3 hours or so though (there was 1 join after that but just the one) so still not sure. I never reloaded the game/restarted the client though, so I'll see tonight when I get back on if anyone joins again.