Rhonin -
I will not spoil anything about the ship, but it is a LOT larger than the Normandy from ME1....Which is why I've spent the past 15 minutes on just the front of the ship, talking to people. Its got some wicked features and backstory.
As for the exploration part:
Its a lot different. Rather than simply hopping from relay to relay, its more intricate. If you played Star Control, you have a good idea whats involved. You physically fly your ship to planets to investigate them. When you get to the planet, you intiate a scanner mini-game. You hover over the planet looking for special areas that have raw materials. You can then launch probes to collect the material which can be used in research...I think.
Its very, very neat stuff. You have a limited amount of probes you can deploy. Also, you cannot hop from star system to star system inside a mass relay. You have to actually use fuel to fly from place to place. It costs credits as do the probes which add for a pretty neat economy element.
I also randomly found a mission on one of these planets. It warns you there is an 'anomly' and tells you that you must find it. When you do, you get to land on the planet for a side quest. The side quest I did was rather short, but pretty fun.
Also, it seems that (and I could be wrong) you get level ups by completing quests, and not killing baddies ala ME1. I am unsure if this is good or bad, but certainly different and neat.
Once I completed the task on this side-mission planet, I was promply debriefed from command and told what I earned by completing the mission.
Back from the dead, I'm afraid.
