So I went back and relistened to Todd Howard on the Lex Fridman podcast. The issue with low quality procedual environments is something Todd had considered. From what I gathered, rather than go the full procedual route, they have a number (probably a very large number) of premade environmental tiles. My understanding is these tiles are just sections of a map that you would find in any game. They then have an algorithm that they use to stitch these tiles together to create the different planets. So it's partially procedually generated at the development end, which is how they generated the 100 systems. But it seems that the planets are fixed on the user end. So if you visited planet X-175 in system 49 and I visited it, we should have an identical experience.
So hopefully it should be okay.
Some other things (Sorry if I'm repeating stuff that people already know)
Systems have recommended levels.
Todd mentioned in the interview that the different space suits give you "buffs for the gases, the toxicity or the temperature on various planets". There could be other environmental hazards planet side, that he did not mention. I'm assuming if there are buffs there are debuffs if you come unprepared to a type of planet.
Lex mentions that space travel in this game is considered dangerous. Todd in reply states that there is some effort involved in space travel and that they have dialed it back during development (from what I inferred it is to ensure that the game is fun). The example he gives is that early on "you use to run out of fuel" but they found it to be a fun killer. From what he described it felt like mining for fuel in these situations was a tedious chore, that was in the way of want you really wanted to do. He then mentions players will build their ships so "they have all the right things for safety".
