Seems to be one thing the community wants. It should work much like CraftBukkit, with a plugins folder and you just plop dlls (or another file format) in there and (re)start Starbound and it's loaded. It should be easy to use.
I am with ya here, modding is a great tool for expanding a game, and not demanding more work from your coders!
I have been doing some digging, and to this day I have not found a better system of Modding then the one for Civilization IV. What they did was "Three fold" 1) Separate system's into Dll's. They kept what proprietary systems that they had (Mainly Graphic stuff) in the Exe, but everything else was in an external Dll that you could mod to your hearts content. And since your just loading known files, in a known structure.. You can tell it where to find these files for example a Modding/MyMod/ Directory 2) They Exposed C++ to python. This made it really easy for people to do "Quick Edits" in a scripting language without having to dig through the C++ to figure everything out. 3)Used XML to save/load data.. This allowed one source where you can just load in your data, and all the "Default" values were able to be changed, (Including the path to the image file). You could even add new "Items" by just extending the XML, and just following the Schema. Though to add new fields would require editing the Dll (As mentioned above it was open for editing so it was possible) I know modding isn't on the top of your todo list, but if you set up a proper modding system, them people will be able to make new things for a long... loooong time. And with this style it still requires the Exe so you don't have to worry about how to distribute the mod's. This should justify the extra work that might be needed to fit this style.. Hopefully some food for though... just without the food.
