I think @Arioch is right - the game was designed to be multiplayer, and singleplayer was just thrown in during Kickstarter. Then it was discarded when they realized it wouldn't work with what they built.
Frontier should release a "stripped down" version of Elite that has offline mode, mods and player hosted servers
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Yes, I think that's right. FWIW, I can't find a single mention of single player off line mode in the original kickstarter, though multiplayer is frequently mentioned. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1461411552/elite-dangerous I'm too lazy to comb through the rest of the stuff to see what happened, but I do remember the kerfuffle when they dropped the single player offline mode and refunded some pledges.
Aye, the reason I signed up. Classic bait and switch by dropping offline mode from development imo.
I wouldn't have backed a single player ED, I'd just have continued playing the free Oolite, which btw has all the modding potential that everyone seems to be looking for. And being free you can even fly all those IP ships, now wipe that drool off your chin.
LOL, those graphics look like early 2000s.
Yeah, but you can mod whatever you like so just put the elbow grease in.
It's also open source so all you armchair devs can get out of your chairs and fix the graphics yourself! 
Back to this one again?
Offline mode or even legacy offline ain't going to happen until the game is 'sunset'. DB is quoted in this article about what happens when Elite is closed down.
So effectively, that's when offline mode comes in, that's when people can do what the fans did with Freelancer, I-War 2 and even First Encounters. Although it's mentioned in other places, It is concerning that we've never had any reassurances that this is still the case. However, the game is still going strong (despite what some on the forums want to believe), I don't think we'll
david braben responds to outcry over elite dangerous ditched offline mode
P.S. What the fans did with Freelancer and what the Legendary Grandpa Trout did with I-War was amazing.
Elite hasn't been going strong since 2018. That was a solid year of decent size quarterly updates. It's been downhill ever since then. Odyssey accelerated the downhill slope by tacking on a mediocre FPS game, killing console support and doing very little to support the game outside of the veil of "narrative" updates that consist of cutscenes and adding in new places to shoot the same small handful of alien vessels.
Due to the glacial speed of development, it's not too early to consider what happens when they decide to sunset the game.
Due to the glacial speed of development, it's not too early to consider what happens when they decide to sunset the game.
Mine too… when it works. But unfortunately it completely falls apart as you get nearer the galactic core with the skybox displaying small collections of bright blue dots arranged in geometric shapes… with the rest of the stars missing.
That or freespace open...i must admit having modded since bg2 i find it unfeasible to do what op suggests. One look at skyblivion or equiv and no; untenable timetable.
Besides, no thank you, OP.
There's little benefit in that for Frontier. That won't happen untill ED becomes unpopular and unprofitable.
I think the message is that there is demand for less not more and less is more for some players.
The billions of stars is more a case study of what can be done with procgen. The problem is to fill it with interesting stuff. The latter is a game design issue - the former a technical problem.
It's more of a gear ceiling in ED.
It is, sort of. For example if NPCs kept on getting harder in response to the player via engineering or just more randomness it would help. Player engineering flattens the difficulty curve far too early in a large chunk of the game and (human) NPCs are kept at a very low level artificially.
Ya, what can you do? Gimme another of your juicy burgers. That's always a consolation.
Irony is in a proc gen RNG game NPC ship loadouts are distinctly non RNG (or at least feel it).
omnomnom
As you might have heard I'm not a friend of too much RNG. If you're rolling on a 1:1000 chances then it's kinda pointless trying. That's looking at rewards and gameplay outcomes. For variety RNG is your buddy that keeps things fresh. Shapes, colours, patterns what you can randomize and still sticks, go for it. The tricky part is making it work so it's still generating reasonable outcomes. The NPC equipment - yeah, it's probably too rigid, then again - I felt they were already too spongy. You know - a less rigid system with more choice what difficulty to expect - would have been better.
Its more about random weapons, ships, modules etc. If 5*+ missions were against random sized wings of random equipment ships it would make for a more difficult but also interesting fight.