The leaderboard idea was for ingame viewing yes. Perhaps you could have stat sharing in the settings by default off, but mentioned somewhere (or even on the leaderboard or stats/profile page) if the players would like to see/compare to others, toggle that option on in settings.
Fair enough on the taxi-cab business idea, this idea was more of a casual thing- rather than a empire building idea. Extra flow of money coming in. But yeah some ideas need the chop if it doesn't fit the vision. I do recall you saying something a long the lines of you wish Stellaris had more exploration? i agree, the combat side of it i'm not really into because its all about in the end attrition and becomes like a board game of risk. The discoveries parts was what interested me most. Although you can fiddle with the settings and have no Ai opponents i think. But one aspect of discovering things often it will be something you have seen before or/and reuse of the same images. I think some discoveries about ancient alien races was suppose to slowly unravel as you learn more about it. But i think it can be difficult to come up with ideas of what doesn't sound the same everywhere, in the end its all linked into technology you discover and unlock new tech, rather than about other things as well. And you cant really relate to alien races, not like ancient findings history in the real world. Where learning about how they lived in relation today is interesting. I agree with No Mans Sky, i am still waiting for an exploration update, there is a modder called RayRod who has really opened the game up in this area, way more biomes and weirdness which im surprised Hello Games haven't hired him, top work. But that is what the game needs. The landmass looks better and more varied than before, still needs more variation in plants and animals.
Anyway i was inspired by Stellaris to make a Text Adventure for a game jam last year and managed to make it to the finish line. Although the game is more like a demo https://gamejolt.com/games/TheSalvage/420024
I recently inspired by your game to started a new one from scratch that is actually more straight forward in the building blocks of it compared to the gamejam version. I use a text adventure creator (called Adrift) which is mostly drop down creator but can handle expressions and is object based in terms of properties etc. Its very robust and it does have its quirks like any program. This time round rather than being about salvaging its space trucking which is a idea i had ages ago when i played a lot of ATS or ETS2. However text adventures are rather different than a game like yours in terms of movement, so i have some ideas to make it a bit more interesting than moving about like on board, although it will have some board-game like mechanics. The Salvage game was hastily put together over two weeks and a bit of a mess under the hood. But I learned quite a bit from that so this time it will be better, more organised. I have some other text adventure games in development too.
Anyway as for your suggestion about having me as a NPC passenger that sounds great. I think i can PM you on here? Daza would be fine for the name and i will come up with something for a basic short conversation.