Most of the criticism of the game has been for the harsh difficulty curve and slow progress (I read about one guy taking 8 hours to fly to the next system). But luckily, the developer has released modding tools and updated the game since to address some of these issues.
As noone had done so yet, I thought I would give it a shot and create a balance mod for the game. My main goals were to speed the game up a bit and make it a little more accessible. I also balanced out the mission rewards, to encourage the player to take some of the cooler missions, like photographing planets and finding lost people.
Oh, have I mentioned that the game is free?
You can download the complete game, with updates and the clgMod, ready to go.
And here are the full changelist, the SpaceSimCentral thread with the vanilla game and all related downloads, and the developer’s website. Oh, and please drop an upvote if you’re on Reddit!