When the game is loading, I love the little text tips at the very start. There are some things in those tips that I just wouldn't know otherwise until after weeks of playing.
I'm not a big fan of flipping through space before spawning, so when the game first starts up, it would be interesting to have a random Youtube tutorial playing with the following control panel at the bottom of the screen (or maybe as a hover-over control panel.) I can imagine new players watching hours of tutorials before spawning.
[<< start of video][< Back 10 sec][> play normally][>> Forward 10 sec][Skip to Next Video][Another Random Video][Spawn][Exit Game]
However, this feels bloated and probably won't work out for the player. Plus, when I have looked at the Youtube tutorials, most of them are hopelessly out-of-date, with no real way of knowing which information bits are still in effect. For example, you'll see tutorials on carefully constructed energy reactors, but that's not really as important anymore, as the arrangement bonus has been nerfed.
Ghosted blocks and highlighting GUI elements is a classic way to develop a tutorial. I always enjoy that level of interactivity. I especially like when GUI elements that you don't know about yet are hidden until they are explained. It can be a little frustrating to see empty space where there should be something normally, but if you can skip parts of the tutorial that you already "get", the frustration will be reduced. Also, maybe make the launcher tutorial configuration a little more in-depth than on/off. Example: X/Y/Z orientation on/off (some people don't know how cartesian coordinates work), GUI element descriptions on/off (where's your money amount, what's your current sector, what mode are you in, etc.), Basic block placement on/off, Advanced Mode access on/off, block turning on/off, symmetry setup on/off, etc.
There should be additional tips that tip off the player that they should experiment with different arrangements for different effects. That turning a weapon computer block (with -full- interactive walkthrough) changes the direction of the weapon output, that you can select which weapon block is the output block, and so on. As a new player, I'll gladly soak up these tips, assuming it will make the game more fun for me when I get into the main part of the game. Another way to do tips would be to have the tutorial rip up their ship so far, and redesign it in a slightly different way, and then highlight the changes. For example, the tutorial can say something like "When the energy blocks were set up in solid cube, you only got 120 e/s. With this configuration, you are getting 125 e/s. Here is why...."
I think the regular non-Ctrl basic construction techniques should be covered in the first 3 or 4 steps. From then on, the tutorial should immerse the player in the advanced building options. That way, the new player sees the advanced construction techniques as the "normal" way to build a ship, and that the basic placement is just used for detail work.
I think I saw a thread in the general discussions where someone offered to rewrite the tutorials. We could contact them directly and see if they can mock up an improved tutorial script. Maybe multiple different scripts, depending on how interactive it can be. For example, one script might be a wall of text, while another script would be an interactive tutorial, describing the appearance of ghost blocks, the blinking and highlighting of specific GUI elements, and that sort of thing.
Edit: The other tutorial thread I mentioned is right here in the Suggestions group, and the player name is ringzero. He's the one who offered to provide writing a new tutorial.
