I'm disappointed that base progression is global, so because I logged in more than 3 hours after the weekly reset I did not get to enjoy any sense of that progression nor can I ever realistically contribute to the group project because I work when the weekly reset happens.

I was expecting it to be more like bozja, where "base progression" projects spawn once every 90 minutes or so, procced by global completion of stellar missions. Participating in your first base progression project each week should net you great rewards and give you a high contribution to the communal project. You should be able to then participate in more base progression projects that week for lesser rewards, so you could grind out your job if you wanted to.

Once the communal goal is reached, the base should only appear to progress when the player picks up the quest to watch the cutscene. The base's current appearance should differ from player to player, so there's no FOMO (not on day 1 and not 5 years later).