Ahoy! CJIA here- like many of you, I cut my teeth on FS1+2. i definitely came across HLP years back, but I've been recently yearning for the gameplay and feels that the FS franchise provided me for years when i was a teenager. I spent a bit of time messing around with Elite:dangerous in VR, but all it did was make me want to play a modernized version of FS in VR as i found the combat and storytelling to be superior in this 20+ year old game. I'm excited to poke around and enjoy the fruits of this community's labor!
Also, since being a teenager, I've developed some experience as an agile product owner for development teams (primarily webapps and websites, but getting developers to developer well together transcends product IMO)- i'd be happy to help on the right project if i would be of use and if it's interesting.
Favorite ships? GTB Athena (wish this came over to FS2 and had a hercules/ares style refresh), and the Ares!