Do you think it's a good idea to state your charcater's intentions, motives and thoughts in the emote-messages? Do you think it helps understanding the character? Or simply spoils the fun of trying to work out their minds (like a riddle), perhaps potentially leading to some unconscious mild metagaming?
Ehhhh, yes and no. In moderation, it can really help flesh out the character. For example, if Rose has to deal with a emotional situation, it’s good to display her thoughts so it relays to others reading it that she’s in a form of severe distress. I’d much prefer to not explain it fully, but to give off little hints in my actions to let those reading it come to their own conclusions. It both avoids unconscious metagame, and helps people understand that particular character a bit more.
I think it can be a bit of a balancing act. If ever I can I prefer to use body language in emotes to convey thoughts or feelings that they otherwise don't say. But sometimes I do find myself falling back on the kind your describing if for comedic or dramatic effect. While it would be nice to live without it using starbound as an RP medium cuts out a lot of subtle body language and tone of voice from characters and I do see some emotes like that as a building a bridge to make up for that. With that in mind it can go too far. If you put your entire backstory into an emote saying hello to another character as an absurd "that will never happen" example.
Odd. Myself I enjoy it more when people do not state any invisible details in their emotes. But if people prefer having that, I might start doing it myself.
Upon giving it more thought, I came to a conclusion. In my opinion as far as your post accurately describes your character's voice, body language and actions in general, you shouldn't include your character's reasoning, as it may trigger mild subconscious metagaming and/or spoil the fun of figuring it out yourself.
