i forget more than1.Its usually an economic1 as well or military

I'd rather have a screen where you can see what categories of modules each starbase can get upgraded with: Influence, production, trade, ship attack, ship defence, and least amount of turns necessary for a constructor to get there. Click the base in the list to set a constructor to go there. The constructor selected to do so is the one of your idle ones which will use the shortest time to get there.

I use the rally points for the constructors currently, but I too tend to forget bases when they've been maxed earlier, and I get another relevant tech.

tatertot18. I think that the lack of scrolling is a huge problem that needs to be addressed ASAP.

On the subject of ship upgrades, I'd like an option to keep the same design of the troop transport/colony ship but just add new components. I hate how the game strips those ships back to just the basic hull when you go to upgrade them. My new colony ships seem so crappy even after 20 minutes of hard work on the design each game.

Internet Play ability most definately. Each player customizes their own race. Imagine a game with 60 races going at it, striking deals, creating Joint Space Fleets, being the Pirates... ( I like that Idea best.) Why research anything when you can just hijack a ship and steal it. What would be even cooler is as you meet a new player race You have to research translation for that race. Once you both have this ability you can then form an alliance. This adds discovering new races interesting. But bear in mind these would not be the simple 1 hour segments of gameplay that many internet players are use to. To make it truelly worthwhile your looking at several hours colonizing, researching building etc.. just like in the single player game only this time the Alliances would be better played out and the Tech trading would be more believeable. Consider 2 or more players with an Alliance and each one of them takes a different Tech Tree limb to research out then a massive trading takes place. But beware Alliances can still be broken and if you were researching planet improving tech and the others were researching combat techs your at a disadvantage fast if they decide to take you out by breaking that nice security blanket of an alliance. I think it would only work better if internet play would allow 2 or 3 techs to be researched simultaeneously. You have the research centers which you could simply have a research Center Screen and what that particular center is working on the more centers working on a particular tech the faster you get it. if you have 20 centers breaking them up into groups of 4 you have 5 different techs that come available at the roughly the same time give or take a week or so...
By doing it this way you would not be caught off guard by researching Shielding Techs and come face to face with someone that has thrown everything into Mass Drivers. etc.
Unfortunately I can also see a game where the static ships and techs are all fully done and all you do is just design ships and go hunting. Not much different that say MechWarrior build the Mech and go into the carnage.
But if they are smart the makers will build something similar to Project Entropy styled where you can join in and pick up where you left off sort of deal. Colonizing planets, Invading others etc. By going this route granted you would have some folks that become unbelievably powerful but at the same time they would not be able to stop everyone from attaining the same level because now your looking at hundreds of users and the shear scale of that alone would be simply impossible. You would not only be in space building ships, starbases, trade routes etc. but now your looking at an array of different factions that would come and go. Groups that would want to be police force types, Mercenaries, Pirates, Traders, Consider the old D&D styled game called Traveller and now your looking at what GCxxx would eventually be able to become. You could actually live on one of your planets, go to your Starbase, fly in your fleet or just go discovering other players planets and there would be a whole new assortment of items for commerce.
You could theoretically create and or join the UFP, visit a B5 style Station for Economic Trades, Search out Anomolies etc..

It's an awesome undertaking to be sure but just sit back and imagine what it would be like and I think you would agree that it would be totally coolness. There would be regions of space that Mercs and Pirates abound and you would have to learn how to deal with them or become one of them, Build a galactic empire get others to join with you.
Engage in total galactic wars or become a spy and sell your information to whomever you choose. Create a race of bounty hunters. A virtual Universe for you to roam around in. Of course the simplified Good / Neutral / Evil would have alot of grey areas once the human element is added to the equation but it would be fun. The game evolves only as far as the creators and the players imaginations allow. Couple all of this with something like Teamspeak and wow it boggles the mind. Hmm Teamspeak and Translators.. Hmmm..