No one at all has mentioned seeing or feeling the asteroid since release, so I don't know if it is actually triggered at all right now. I'll ask on the Discord server. (EDIT: Heard from at least one player that it works.)
I am still not sure it is a good event. Even more so since it is a singleplayer game now and we don't need it to clean up abandoned empires.
I was thinking that the asteroid event would be much more interesting as an event happening to another world. Like maybe you encounter a tiny new civilization that hasn't developed space travel yet. You land and meet them, only for them to tell you about the asteroid headed towards their homeworld. You then have a couple hours to destroy the asteroid after learning about it.
This could then lead to the civilization becoming a full NPC empire if you save them. Rather they are a hostile empire could depend on how you deal with the mission. Or maybe they just become hostile later due to governmental changes.
I am still not sure it is a good event. Even more so since it is a singleplayer game now and we don't need it to clean up abandoned empires.
I was thinking that the asteroid event would be much more interesting as an event happening to another world. Like maybe you encounter a tiny new civilization that hasn't developed space travel yet. You land and meet them, only for them to tell you about the asteroid headed towards their homeworld. You then have a couple hours to destroy the asteroid after learning about it.
This could then lead to the civilization becoming a full NPC empire if you save them. Rather they are a hostile empire could depend on how you deal with the mission. Or maybe they just become hostile later due to governmental changes.