Hey there,

Glad that you enjoyed the article Siddartha. What people don't tend to see is that every small part of the game has a lot of thought go into it, generating planets is exactly one of those things. This is very typical of the gaming industry, it's why development costs can quickly become very big.

Regarding your questions
1/ It's been enhanced a lot. Pre-Alpha players will still recognise the game, but pretty much everything has had a makeover from textures to quests, to the gameplay. Think of the pre-alpha as a proof of concept.
2/ For now I don't have an answer to this question because it's something that we're actively working on. With HyperTown and Casual Connect, we're getting a lot of feedback from people who try the game - so we're making a decision later on. Additionally, we're going to have an alpha test phase (where people can play) and feedback from that will be used for how planets work in the end.

@saugwurm
That's the general idea, yes. Right now we are working entirely on the PC launch. However, we are already discussing how the mobile/tablet version will work and look. You'll hear more about mobile after our PC launch.