Player retention ideas

I know most games will lose more players than they gain and it's inevitable, but after two back to back experiences where the game basically fell apart at the end of the second week I'm feeling a little defeated. Our server went from 150 people down to 20. Each person that leaves the game is one less supplier / one less customer and the economy gets a bit harder and this compounds the problem causing the next person to get frustrated and maybe leave as well. At this point I think everyone has experienced it.

One part of this problem is real life happens, this can't be avoided and no matter what people will have other things come up. Not complaining about that and it's to be expected.

But there are two other key parts. One, that every day there are other new servers to try out. So if you hit a tiny bit of frustration you can jump to another server that is fresh and new. The official ones spin up a new scenario every week, plus all of the other unofficial ones, means there is always the perception of greener grass on the other side.

And the other, theres no real benefit to sticking out a scenario. You don't need to buy the best food and building materials to grind out that 6th star if you aren't the person building the lasers, especially if the rest of your town quit already. But what if upon scenario completion (bonus points if the meteor is shot down, or "success" in whatever other scenarios they are dreaming up for 1.0, but even if the meteor crashes down and you lose) your account got some currency, some metric. A cosmetic reward prize track, maybe, that could run in parallel to the cosmetics they are offering or some that are exclusive to sticking it out. Maybe a meta-experience track where you get some perks or skills that you can carry over into a new scenario? Or maybe a "reputation" standing so joining a new server they know how often you stick it out and some servers could even have minimum thresholds that need to be met before you are eligible to join. Maybe bonus points if someone joins a scenario in progress?

I am sure there are pluses and minuses to all of the above, just brainstorming. I also appreciate I may have been unlucky these past two runs, and/or the excitement to see the end of a scenario will increase with new scenarios released in 1.0, but I'd argue this is probably the biggest drawback the game has right now and would hope someone is able to do something about it - because otherwise this game is pretty awesome and it's really fun watching a community come together and transform a planet.