Will they do a hard reset upon release? Or do I get to keep my progress?

They'd have to do a hard reset otherwise there wouldn't really be a point in playing, meow. You'd have players weeks to months ahead of everyone else.

They will reset.



I can definitely see some alliances forming.
The cost of traveling somewhere specific to attack a system versus just trying to find a good system of your own will be high so while it might be hardcore I don't think we will see a lot of this before many months into the game.