I'm glad to see coders added to the game that is slowly but surely leaving MC in the dust! (although, I'll probably still play both). While many may think that this job will get done FASTER now, keep in mind that these people have lives too you know. They're not like us sitting around nervously waiting for the next cool updates to come out. So my advice to my fellow players is to stay patient, and don't get exited. They're still releasing dev builds for the docking fix (and while I'm anxious for that, I'm afraid I still require being sold on mass-based docking.), so don't expect the Modding API to be out right away. On that point, allow me to requote the requotes of Schema and his team: The docking update is the next scheduled release after the Docking Fix.
My Advice to the devs is probably one they already know, but ignore the guys who want the finished product now. I've heard many compare this game as to being better than minecraft (and it is by a slim lead), but please remember (and this goes to my fellow Forum posters as well) that Starmade is only in Alpha. Yes, ALPHA, meaning it's going to be buggy, it's going to have problems, and it's going to get way, way cooler. I mean, the dev team hasn't even made v0.2 yet, let alone v1.0. So I'm not expecting any signifigant increase in speed. As the old saying goes, "Quality over Quantity," and from what I've seen this has been the case time and time again with starmade.
All in all, welcome to the team, and I'm glad that the project is slowly gaining ground.