Even though this is an older post, as someone about to start this AP I wanted to lay out what changes I've been making to see whether I'm creating pitfalls for myself in the future.
The first thing that caught me was the limit to level 4 items available to the shops on New Harmony. It makes sense for story purposes, as they have to "live off the land". Since they still have interstellar communication and the AP mentions that ships will swing by to deliver supplies and colonists, I wanted to give them option to "go shopping" in a way that felt appropriate to the story.
What I came up with was they could order anything higher than level 4 from Absalom Station with a 10% inflation in price due to administration, shipping, etc. Using Drift travel times any order made would take 1d6 days to arrive at Absalom Station, while their credits/UPBs would be held for collateral. Upon receipt of the order it would take another 1d6 days to acquire the item, fill out the paperwork for export, etc. At that point the item would be ready for transport. When the regularly scheduled freighter then leaves for New Harmony, it would take 5d6 days of drift travel to arrive (with a 25%-50% chance of delays due to the Vast.)
Another thing I found strange about the adventure was that the characters are administering the charter (likely) for a sponsor, yet there's nothing in the book about being paid to do the job. Usually I wouldn't think much about this, but given loot in the adventure is rather light (shockingly, bear-stags don't carry 1000's of credits on their person) I wanted to implement a system to compensate the party for fulfilling their duties as explorers and effective administrators.
Given they'll be short of many amenities until they build them, I gave each player a 500 credit "signing bonus" to help with their starting equipment. Next, I developed a bounty system for their exploration activities. Each time they Recon a hex they earn 20 UPBs, every new flora/fauna they identify/catalogue earns them 100 UPBs per CR of the creature, and any information they learn about the planet's mystery may be rewarded on a case-by-case basis.
Finally, I developed a system wherein the characters are compensated for their effectiveness in running their charter. Each month the characters earn 5 UPBs for each hex that makes up their charter, 5 UPBs for each settlement project completed, 10 UPBs for each charter project completed, and 50 UPBs for each settlement established. This final total is then adjusted by the charter's Unrest score, with each point reducing their monthly income by 5%. This should give them some economic freedom to customize their characters without gaining so much wealth early on that it breaks the game. I've drafted an Excel workbook that handles the math for me.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1p5UXy1THjYW30yded3WAUJQuuWfSA-HA/ed it?usp=drive_link&ouid=104115254735209047936&rtpof=true&sd=true
I'm probably making work for myself, but this is such an unusual adventure and I'm really excited to see where this all goes.