What matters is default settings. If you expect people to jump into a game and know that 10 hours down the line they made a bad choice, then it’s a bad default. “Just buy stuff” doesn’t work when stations don’t have what you need - it’s fine for a tiny ship, try getting enough uranium for 10 reactors in a reasonable time by buying.
Its a sandbox everything depends on the mods and options you chose at start, thats… Literally what these games are about.
Some gamers are just looking for a simple out-of-the-box experience, and will immediately turn their noses up at the idea of mods.
I am not one of those poor souls, but I do know quite a few of them.
These people shouldn’t buy a sandbox game then. You know from the start. (and they are idiots, steam workshop is super easy)
I had a friend refuse to use any 7 Days to Die modlets because they’re “unsafe” despite being simple XML translations. He wouldn’t even use one I wrote myself.