Spicing up Planetary Landing

I've spent some time brainstorming, with the goal of trying to make sure that planet landing still feels interesting to most players after the first couple hours of gameplay.

Ideas:

• EDIT: Have your First Officer level up. Have the landing mini-game give XP (more for rougher weather landings), and killing enemies / collecting bio units also give XP.
  
  
• Implement timing-based shields, so you can use your lander's energy to block lightning, an incoming volcanic fireball, enemy fire, etc.
  • You'd want clear indication that lightning is about to strike, enemy weapons with travel time, and so on.
    
    
• Competing aliens/drones that are already collecting resources on some surfaces when you arrive. You can potentially destroy them for the resources + their base materials. They can potentially try to harvest you.
  • This could be completely unimportant to the story, or a minor subplot of one of the races, aka there could be diplomatic consequences for harming their probes, which might be worth it if they drop valuable radioactives when destroyed.
    
    
• Random events, a la roguelikes like FTL. Maybe any planet without a planned energy signature has a ~10% chance of a "random event" energy signature being dynamically placed on the surface when you enter the system the first time. They range from empty ruins with interesting lore, to finding the remains of a derelict ship and getting 10 Tzo crystals, to enemy ambushes, to caches of fuel, to one-time chances to buy discounted ship modules, and so on.
  • Can enhance replayability if there are enough random events that you probably won't discover them all on your first run.
  • If some of them have choices with good/bad outcomes, then you further enhance replayability, plus add some spice.
  • You could make some of them interconnected. Example, perhaps you can discover multiple journals of the lost xenoarchaeologist Gud Fynd, which tell an ongoing story. Some might even give hints to stuff, like Rainbow Worlds?
  • You could also make a few of these into side-quests that persist longer than the surface of the planet, like returning a crash surviving diplomat home.
  • Some of these random events could happen as soon as you land, not when you touch the energy signal. Example: "Captain, we're picking up incredible seismic activity beneath the surface. We only have another thirty seconds down here before we need to lift off, otherwise we're going to be in hot water. And by hot water, I mean lava."
    
    
• Assuming that we can stun animals to collect bio units, turn that into a collectibles type thing. Divide the enemies into subcategories, like Quadruped Sauropod, Animated Tree, Red Jelly, etc. and give a reward for hunting down a wide variety.
  • Example: whoever is rewarding you for bio units, have them give you an extra bonus for, "Oh, it looks like you've discovered 10 different xenofauna categories. We are able to reward you an additional 50 credits for this. Please keep up the good work."
  • Do NOT give an in-game "You have discovered 12 out of 37 possible species" - this would ruin the sense of exploration.
    
    
• Other things a lander could do:
  • Other subweapons. Homing missiles, miniature black holes, defense drones, call in a missile strike from the flagship, etc.
  • Active radar, always points you toward the nearest item on the planet's surface. This might attract robotic enemies?
  • If a fuel cost will be added to landing later, then a crew teleporter to send down replacement crew instead of lifting off.