Background
Do you slightly dread new Star Valor playthroughs because the opening mining and exploration gameplay is so boring and time-consuming?

Many players are not interested in spending human time on game activities that do not involve interesting decisions or risk. For example, for many configurations, mining the asteroid field in the starting sector involves zero risk (nothing ever attacks you, and even if it did you could run to a starbase and your attacker would give up and fly away) and no real decisions (just finger strain injuries while holding down the mining laser button, and potentially a lot of fiddly "can I collect this crystal" motion before you have enough money to buy better equipment, but with no penalty for missing the crystal aside from wasting time). These time considerations can be especially relevant for permadeath playthroughs, self-imposed challenges (no fleet, etc.), or certain playstayles (e.g., checking all of the neighboring sectors to find one that sells a collector beam or refinery for early mining). After you have done them the first time, these actions do not involve any particular skill and just become taxes on your time.

This mod reduces many of those time-consuming aspects while retaining as much of the challenge as possible. (Here "challenge" focuses on actions with a potential or penalty for failure. Flying back and forth between a starbase in a safe sector is not a challenge in this sense: it takes time, but you can't actually fail.)

New Game Creation Effects

• All "Other Perks" are accessible when creating a character. Want to try out "Anaximander" but don't have time in real life to visit 100 sectors? You can select it on a new character and experience it in game. Note: this does not unlock perks permanently on your account, it just allows you to select them when starting a new game. So if you uninstall this mod (etc.) you will not have permanently maxed out your account. (Don't like this feature? Just don't pick any perk you didn't unlock naturally.)
• No starting Ship Size restriction. Regardless of any background or perk choices, you may select any starting ship size (up to Kraken, size 7). This allows you to try out various perk and ship combinations without having to suffer through not having enough money at the very start to buy gyroscopes and boosters for movement. (Don't like this feature? Don't select a ship that's bigger than the normal rules would allow you to have.)
• Starting equipment: Collector Beam and Basic Refinery. Your ship will begin with these two items. (Don't like this feature? Unequip and destroy them.) The items still take up space and cost energy; they are not "built in" to your ship or anything like that, you just start with them the same way you start with the mining laser.
  

In-Game Effects

• 100x Cargo Space. This increases the trade goods your ship can carry. It does not influence equipment or weapon slots. See other mods for that. In the early game, especially with smaller ships, clearing an asteroid field often involves running back and forth to a station, which does not involve danger or decisions after you've done it for the first time and instead just wastes your time.
• No "Over Level" XP Penalty In Low-Level Sectors. In the standard game, when your level is too high compared to the sector you are in, you earn 5% of the XP instead of 100% for many actions. Unfortunately, this creates a poor gameplay tension with permadeath or similar games, since there is a mechanical advantage to clearing low-risk sectors, but there is no in-game danger or risk, just a cost to your precious human lifespan. This behavior is changed so that you always receive  at least 100% of the XP (but the reward numbers will still display in grey to let you know the effect would have happened).
• 1% Asteroid Health. Clearing asteroid fields in the early game is a no-risk, no-decisions chore that involves holding down the mouse button and occasionally waiting for heat or energy to recharge. The normal game formula for asteroid HP is Size * ((400 + Level * 30) / 100); this divides that by 100 so that basic weapons can kill asteroids in a hit or two. (Higher-level asteroids will have more HP and may require higher-level weapons.) This gives you that fun late-game experience of plowing through an asteroid field that you had on your high-level character on your new character from the start.
• 100x Passenger Space. This increases the number of people you can carry. It does not influence how many you can have running your ship or providing benefits. Finding an escape pod often involves either jettisoning someone you are already carrying (questionable roleplaying) or running back to a starbase and dropping people off there. After you've done that one or twice, it does not involve any danger or real decisions but does waste your time.
• 2.5x Scanner Power. This is "local, within a sector" exploration, not warping around the galaxy map. You will spend less time running around empty space to explore sectors. In permadeath games, there is a mechanical advantage to clearing all of the low-threat initial sectors (e.g., for skill ups or perks or to find resources) but it is quite boring. There is no real risk and no interesting decision after you've done it once or twice: just paint out a pattern and tire out your finger holding down the thrust key and occasionally turning. You will still have to move around a little bit to explore a sector, and scanner upgrades still matter, but you won't spend as much time on it.
  

Installation & Uninstallation

• Copy Assembly-CSharp.dll into Star Valor\Star Valor_Data\Managed overwriting the file that is already there. Be sure to pick the version that matches the game version you have installed. The mod is not compatible with any other mods that change that same file (sorry).
• To uninstall, just restore your backup of Assembly-CSharp.dll. Optionally, delete that file and ask Steam to validate your local game cache and it will re-download just that one file. It is totally safe to uninstall this mid game if you don't like it. Similarly, nothing bad will happen to your character if Steam auto-updates the game to 2.0.6 (or whatever) and you lose this mod.
  

Design Considerations
Many people have an intuitive negative reaction to quality of life mods (e.g., "this is just cheating", "if you don't like the game then don't play it", "if you want it to be easy, just cheat and give yourself more money"). Different people can definitely get enjoyment from different actions. If you don't like this sort of mod, don't install it.

I will note that the choices in this mod were largely made to save you time, rather than to make the game easier per se. For example, to reduce the time wasted exploring, I tried out increasing ship speed, acceleration or turning. Unfortunately, those make combat even easier than it already is by making "hit and run" tactics (even more) overpowered. By contrast, increasing exploration by a bit doesn't really give you an advantage because you could have spent two minutes flying there. Similarly, you could simulate the effect of increased cargo space for mining by making many back-and-forth trips to sell materials. You can simulate the effect of lower asteroid health by spending more time firing your laser: asteroids don't shoot back. You can simulate passenger space by making trips back and forth to space stations and dropping people off: enemies don't really destroy escape pods. And so on. For most of the effects in this mod, you could have acquired them naturally, it would just have taken time.

There are some other options floating around, such as Cheat Engine tables or inventory mods. I, personally, found the cheat engine tables to have the effect of reducing the difficulty without saving time (e.g., setting the HP of everything to 1 makes ship combat too easy; I prefer the asteroid solution here). Similarly, I, personally, liked and endorsed the inventory mod, but found the equipment and weapon space variants made the game too easy and the pure cargo space one didn't reduce the crushing mining and exploration times.

I'm looking forward to more to come from official Star Valor development. I hope you're enjoying the game as well.

Details
If you need to recreate all or part of this mod or want to merge it with another mod, here are the changes and "line numbers" (as of 2.0.5). This is not relevant to end users; this information only matters to modders or programmers.

(*) All "Other Perks" are accessible when creating a character.
        PerkDB::LoadPerks()
        49      perk.locked = false;
(*) No starting Ship Size restriction.
        NewGameSetupControl :: GetMaxShipSizeAllowed
        27      return ShipClassLevel.Kraken;
(*) 100x Cargo Space.
        Spaceship :: CalculateShipStats
        323     this.cs.cargoSpace = shipModel.data.cargoSpace * 100;
(*) 100x Passenger Space.
        ibid
        325     this.cs.passengerSpace = shipModel.data.passengers * 100;
(*) 2.5x Scanner Power.
        ibid
        491     this.stats.scannerPower = (int)((float)this.stats.scannerPower * this.crew.efficiency[2] * 2.5f);
(*) No "Over Level" XP Penalty In Low-Level Sectors.
        PChar :: EarnXP
        68                              amount *= 1f;
(*) Starting equipment: Collector Beam and Basic Refinery.
        GameData :: CreateDefaultChar
        90      GameData.data.InstallEquipment(EquipmentDB.GetEquipment(161), 1, KeyCode.Alpha1);
        91      GameData.data.InstallEquipment(EquipmentDB.GetEquipment(120), 1, KeyCode.Alpha1);
(*) 1% Asteroid Health.
        Asteroid :: Start
        7               this.baseHP = (float)(400 + this.level * 30) / 100f;