So we (a friend and I) have been playing only on hardcore recently. Didn't really no perma death thingy at first, but considering how annoying redoing all the quests was we went back.

Anyways, the current punishment for death on Hardcore feels really light. Pixel-loss is irrelevant considering how cheap the pixel compressor is and dropping all items is just an annoyance since the crystal skull teleports me back to my death location. It's really just a question of "Are there still baddies around?" and "How fast can I put on my armor/EPP?".

Here are my current ideas (Could be made into a separate patch mod, too. I just don't know how to mod this game...)
-Percentage loss of Research upon Death, maybe also 50% (Rather easy to get, but valuable. Though it can be stored, losing some when exploring or due to negligence can be painful.)
-Percentage loss of Ancient Essence, 25% should be enough, but higher is also alright (Either very painful or not at all, depending on how much the player wants/needs it. Can be farmed with relative ease in late game tho)
-Increasing the price of Crystal Skulls (I know they are probably meant to make the gameplay nicer for survival and maybe casual players, but they are way too cheap. IMO 500 to 1000 essence per skull)