Heya!
Glad, you liked the video! - honestly, watching it makes me scream at myself, it is really hard to play this game while trying to focus also on talking about it ^^"
I already thought, that the lack of zoom is down to PICO-8 (even though I know nothing about it, but the comments show me it is very limited in what you can do with it). But since I tried to show the game of as what it is, I felt the need to at least address it as an issue (when you are able to build longer slipways it was more a problem then in the early phase of the game).
With "non-planets" I mean the ones dissappear after you scan them, aye. I had a lot of games where I started in the busiest sector and ended up with an earth-like, a water-planet and a barren and not many options. It feels like too many of them dissappear. I would feel more comfortable if it would be coded in a way, that the first x number of planets you scan have a bigger chance of being hospitable.
Oh by the way: For fun, I just tried to start the game on my iPhone and was able to at least colonize 3-4 planets and build slipways and I liked the way it looked and felt on a mobile device even though I wasn't able to move the map or use any other right-click or mouse-over actions.
Any plans for a mobile version after the full pc-version is out there? :) I pretty much enjoy the puzzle-like very light gameplay and I think this one would be a nice one to have for a 20min session on public transport.
bests,
Verg :)