It would be nice to see an improvement in invasion screen graphics.
Suns going nova
Impassable terrain, or terrain which slows down ships and/ or damages ships
space monsters: space sharks, crystalline entities, world eating monoliths, space dragons,
More random events per game
Hero characters and governors
Supergiant worlds
The precursor library to show up now and then
Enhanced tech tree - more techs, more branches, hidden techs, unlockable techs
Tactical combat
Carriers and / or ship enhancing flagships which can be upgraded via constructors
Supergiant ships that can only constructed via orbiting shipyard -one per race
anomalies pop up constantly but less the abundance in the beginning of the game
ethical choices continue after ethics is researched
improved espionage and counterespionage
Terrorism and antiterrorism
Improved minor races, they are worthless at the moment
Dread lord appearances
The birth and rise of the messiah leads to a fremen like jihad of Dune like proportions
Improved diplomacy
And most importantly improved AI effectiveness - Planet mgt, diplomacy, trading and combat.
And thats just for starters

Give me a dyson sphere, and I'm happy.

1. More ship designs, chassis, and hull parts.

2. The option to 'mine' stars. Sounds a bit strange, but hear me out. Each star could give a random bonus to whatever race that places a constructor on it (to represent a station set up to make use of it in some way. Either as a solar energy collecting station or some sort of radiation catcher that limits damaging radiation, and improves the PQ of all habitable planets within the system). As we all know, there are certain types of stars that never have habitable planets, maybe they could have civilisation wide bonus (like a +2 to morale), or even just a localised one (A set bonus to attack and defense to all ships within the area, which makes them perfect for millitary buildup. Or even just being a massive sensor station, giving your empire an early warning system).

3. Increase in the importance of government. I mentioned it in another thread, but the idea is simple enough. Once a year (opposite time of year to the UP meeting) the Senate decides on a resolution and a vote is made, and you have to complete their request before the next meeting, or you suffer a penalty (normally a loss to morale, as the people feel you're ignoring their voice, but it can be resolution specific). For example, the senate could:
A) State they feel our nation is undefended, and require you reach a certain millitary rating
State that they feel technology X would benefit our people best, and require it to be researched.
C) State that our relation with race X has been allowed to stagnate, and require it is improved to a certain level
D) Our relations with race X have never been higher! Convince them to ally with us.
E) Our planet of X feels undefended. Place a millitary starbase with a minimum of Y modules in it's sector.
Etc.
It would just add a new sense of importance to the higher forms of government, I think.

4. Colony stations. One of the common things in Sci-fi's of all types is giant space stations that act as colonies. Perhaps they could be a new type of starbase, and serve no purpose but to give you a place to gain further income. Additional modules could improve their economic rating (thus increase taxes), their population cap (but by less then even a basic farm, you wouldn't be able to fit billions upon billions of people in an artificial colony), their morale (they'd have to have a morale rating, of course), their loyalty (to protect from influence-steals) and their defenses (imagine how crippled an economy would become if a race relied on a dozen space colonies for tax income, and they were all destroyed in a lightning attack by the Yor... Ouch!)

That's all I can think of at the moment.

to SJLunchbox,

no offense, but i would HATE number 3, although number 2 and 4 are good ideas

None taken. I just feel the government possibility isn't really being used properly. So far all it does is mean there's a vote occasionally which you should have NO trouble dominating, and means you get a bit more money. Woohoo.

And it would mean there's a good reason for doing a Star-wars and going from Republic to a dictatorship. Senate gets annoying? Simply strip them of their power (though I'd expect consequences, such as as a morale penalty for a few weeks).

I'd like to see more diplomatic options and a further improved AI.

Okay, here's a big list of lots of crap, in no particular order, that I'd like to see someday:

1. Special "Free Design Mode". It would be great to have an item on the main menu that takes you straight into the Ship Designer--and with access to all races, hull styles, and components. There would also be toggles for each of the miniaturization techs, super projects, galactic achievements, trade goods, and whatever else, so that you can simulate whatever level of miniaturization is appropriate for when in the game you intend your design to be used. What it all means is no more playing through sandbox games, or creating oodles of special ship-building scenarios, just so you can play around with such-and-such in the Ship Designer!

2. Mod support for creating additional major races. Why should we be limited to ten? It'd be nice to create your own major races, while still having the original ten around.

3. Unique hull style and jewelry for each and every race. You just know we'd have a field day with that.

4. A fix for that problem that resulted in the sensors, range, and speed being capped. You can't even build a ship that can go across a full gigantic map, not to mention the Eyes of the Universe and Hypersensors render any ship and starbase sensor components useless...

5. Revamped ethics! Let's face it--buying your ethical alignment is pretty retarded. Your alignment ever becoming permanently fixed is also retarded; it kills all the excellent potential that the system has. Alignment bonuses (diplomacy, morale, etc.) should become stronger or weaker as your alignment draws nearer or farther, and straying too far from an alignment should cause its weapons and defenses to be disarmed, and its associated planetary improvements dismantled. This places a much greater importance on your choices as a leader, and helps keep the game dynamic through to the end. There's also some government-related stuff I'll describe in the next item.

6. New and varied governments! It makes no sense that Lord Kona (being a tyrannical warlord), or the Thalans (being a hive mind), would ever take steps to form a Star Democracy. I want to see governments take communal, totalitarian, and theocratic forms, have associated alignments--and become unstable (weaker bonuses, political party loses favor, risk of revolt, etc.) when you drift away from said alignments--have certain forms be unavailable to certain races, and offer a variety of bonuses.

7. Improved United Planets voting. Have a "yes or no" vote that's followed by a "how much" vote, have multiple issues each session, allow human and AI players to submit issues for voting (with a limit of once a year or something, of course), hold emergency meetings to address various random events... There's lots of stuff that could be done to improve it.

8. Political borders. Keep the AI from covering your space in starbases, and use Right of Passage Treaties to alleviate the AI's bad case of TPORS (Transport Proximity OverReaction Syndrome).

9. Grouping of components in the Ship Designer. Kinda like grouping vector objects in Adobe Illustrator. Keep organized, and manipulate multiple components at once.

...And that's all I can think of at the moment.

The option (at each fleet battle) to choose 'auto resolve' or 'tactical' combat.

The tactical combat could be turn based or some other method where instructions could be given to my ships ahead of the battle, then play it out. I would actually prefer 'real time' combat instead of the 'tactical' combat, but would settle for whichever is easiest to implement.

1) Anomolies that continue to spawn throughout the game (so you can always be looking for them)
2) A way to "build" a habital planet out of one that isn't (terraforming ship module?)
3) A way to speed up "cleanup" at the end of a game. When you know you're going to win, but don't want to spend hours invading each planet, just a way to force a surrender and get it over with. (Note: i tend to play with influence and alliance victories turned off).
4) A way to change multiple planets' production at once, as well as define the waypoint of multiple planets at once (shift-select on the overview screen?)
5) A way to invade and sieze starbases and mines, or even influence-take them
6) Civil-Engineering that would allow you to get even more tiles
7) Orbital bases that have the effect of increasing tiles on a planet
8) Mining resources that either appear throughout the game and/or become "tapped out" over time.
9) Settings to increase mining resource and anomoly densities as well as spawn rates
10) More alien races
11) A pallet of pre-made ship designs

True play-by-email multiplayer is the only thing I think I'd pay for at this point. And yeah, I missed the survey again for this. But my friend would buy it too, and possibly this other dude we play Civ III multi with. I don't care about scenarios, and the things I think the game is lacking should be free updates (like an option to disable starting ships).

A way to save the current map so you can load it latter in a new game

I'd like the option to save the ships I design as core ships or a new category.

Multiplayer plus more features like possibly technologies and graphical flavor like UI changes based on alignments, and things like possibly like more races. If multiplayer isn't included though i dont see the point in paying for it. I'll play something like EU3, when it comes out, for my strategy fix then.

Campaigns and scenarios isn't what i'm looking for as far as "features" go either. Scenario expansions bore me as they have practically no replayability and are never done correctly. The campaign in the game is allready a waste of time so i wouldn't bother with an expansion for it.

So long as it adds more variety i will be convinced to possibly buy it.

I agree we need more events and "minor charactors like space slugs and pirates. I have personally never seen a pirate in the many games I have played.

Anomalies throughout the game timeline not just at beginning.

Better thought out invasion offence and defence , ie raising armies

One single screen to interact with all the info gathered in espianage. I want to see it all together not split into diplomacy, relations and civ manager. More hands on espianage.... maybe even blowing up stuff on alien worlds
not terrorism... just pre-emptive strikes

It might have been said but...

I think Espionage should be taken one step further. Let's say, once you reach the High Espionage level and have a certain tech, you should be able to send in a group of infiltrators to do a variety of things like:
1. Steal Orbiting Ships
2. Disable production for a period of time
3. Blow up orbiting ships
4. Kill Goverment Officials (take off the head the body will die)
The last one the Officials could be replaced by someone more kind to you, making deals easier (think Assassination of Bautista in Cuba, without Castro doing his Cuban Missle Dealy). That could also backfire and that new leader could associate with your enemy, or even declare war on you.

Idea #2: BLOW THEM UP!
I've gone total war on the Torian Confederation so many times now, but i've never been able to blow their planets up, or even just turn 'em class 0 to get that satisfaction (Yes, I'm a young Grand Moff Tarkin) of REALLY exterminating them. Maybe you could upgrade to Death Star Weapons, but I'd like t be able to orbitally bombard them, not just with the mass driver invasion tactic, but just have Large and Huge hulled ships use their Missles and Beam Weapons to devastate the landscape and maybe turn them class one (Make the Death/Terror Star/Ball the Penultimate, total destroyer of worlds), and watch it all, like those movies that play after a rplanetary takeover or the ceation of a trade route.

Idea #3: Orbital Starbases
This could be used for a class 0 planet, but the class zero say, can't have rings or a moon. The Starbase couldn't produce stuff like warships, but could research like the power of 2 research buildings., and can be upgraded like a typical starbase. Maybe like 4 different types for planets, (Military, Econ, Influ. Research) and 3 for everywher else (as normal)

Idea #4: Communism
Why not have Communism as a form of government. I dunno what the bonus could be for that, but Civ3 made it well i thought. i can see why you wouldn't want this type of Government implemented, quite contraversial.
Just some thoughts.

In no particular order, and in full understanding that asking for all of this in a single expansion is like asking for every video game in existence for christmas - I might get some, but oh God not all.

Cloaking: It's in lots and lots of SF, hard- and softcore. It could be a branch off of point defense, specifically ECM. You'd start off with simple Stealth stuff like Silent Running, Stealth Plating, and Sensor Blockers. After that we get into Cloaking, with Tachyon Masking, Light Bending, and Cloaking Device. Then we have true Invisibility, with Phase Cloak, Dark Matter Coating, and Invisibility Field. Your ship could go flitting around in space totally unnoticed by the enemy, unless they had sufficient sensors on their ships - the sensor technology tree might need to be expanded to counter this. Once in combat, the cloaking would drop so ships have a fighting chance, but in strategic mode, they would be invisible.

Expanded Planetary Invasion Tech Tree: Just some cool stuff I'd like to see happen as far as Planetary Invasions go, very much inspired by the Robert Heinlein novel Starship Troopers. Between Space Marines and whatever tech is next, we have a tech called Powered Armor, which upgrades your Soldiering level now that your soldiers have shiny new suits of awesome to go stomping aorund in. Sometime shortly after that, a new invasion tactic tech would be available - Orbital Drop Capsules. Similar to Traditional Warfare, as its pretty much straight combat with little environmental damage, but your troops would get a pretty big Advantage bonus from dropping at supersonic speeds from orbit onto the ground and proceeding to be the supreme badasses all Space Marines must be. To balance it out, there would be a 5%-30% drop of the amount of troops that end up on the ground - some might burn up in atmo, some might get knocked out by flak, and some might make a mighty big crater when their retro-rockets don't fire. A nice tactic for people who would like the planet they're invading nice and intact, thank you very much.

Carriers: I know, I know, some people love them, some people hate them. I'm in the love category, what can I say?

Mass-Produced fighters: This wouldn't really change the game whatsoever, it's just a little peeve of mine. When building Tiny or Small hulled ships, they wouldn't appear as a single craft, but as squadrons of 7 (for Tiny) or 3 (Small) craft. Speed, hit points, damage, all that would stay the same, this would be a purely visual change, and even then likely only in combat viewing mode. Why? Because - One: Do you honestly think that an entire planet's infrastructure given to mass-producing military space craft would take three weeks to create only one fighter? Two: Which is more believable to you in realistic thinking - one lone patrol fighter knocking out an enemy recon cruiser, or him and six of his flyboy squadmates doing it? Three: I guess I'm not too happy about Capital ships and fighters having the same scale of weaponry as each other. Wouldn't it make more sense to have a fihgter squadron with seven small laser cannons do the same damage as one Capital-sized laser turret? Four: It makes fleets with fighters included look so much cooler, even when only one fighter unit is included in the fleet.

Orbital Defense Platforms: These would be built as a Social Project on the planet their protecting, but they'd be tangible military units when the enemy invades. The platforms could be upgarded to keep up with the enemy, and it would do away with having to waste useful military spacecraft in a purely defensive role. Making the ODP's augmentable by nearby Military Starbases would make them even more effective.

Big Brother is Watching...: This was an idea I cooked up recently regarding Influence Starbases. When placed near another Civ's planet, you could view that planet as if you had an advanced Espionage rating for that planet's owner Civ. This could be anything from your Starbase's security officers hearing rumors from alien tourists about military construction on the nearby planet to someone on your starbases data-hacking their planetary computer network. This ability would be the effect of a Starbase module, with bigger Espionage bonuses coming from upgraded modules.

Here is what I would definetely want in an expansion...

This is what I was thinking about this whole espionage enhancement, espionage should result in 3 actions;

1. Research Terrorism (evil empires only) = This enables your spies to gather enough info on a particular building on a particular planet so that your terrorists can blow it up.

2. Research Theft (neutral empires only) = This enables your spies to gather enough info on a particular ship so that your space pirates can steal it.

3. Research Destablization (good empires only) = This enables your spies to gather enough info on another neutral or evil empire's planet and it's government to expose and cause revolt by pushing down it's approval rating and therefore making your influence starbases worth building close to an enemy planet.

The way it works is that you either ...
1. succeed or succeed and get caught and war will ensue...
2. fail or fail and get caught and war will ensue...

*The way to succeed will be on your espionage rating and also on how much of that rating your using from the amount your spending which will in turn be compared on the targets ratings and spendings. The AI will also show the number of turns it will take until the action takes place, so the more your rating is higher then the targets the shorter amount of time it will take and thats how you will know if your going to be successful. If the AI dosn't show how many turns it will take, it means that your target has higher ratings and it will be impossible to infiltrate and will most likely fail and get caught.

For example if you have a 70% espionage rating and the spending limit is from 0bc to 500bc and your spending on the target is 100bc, then your overall rating is 14%. If your target's espionage level is 30% and he's spending 450bc on you, then his overall rating will be 27%. This means that you fail and get caught against him because his rating is higher with a 27% vs 14% for yours. Just do the math...

>5% difference lower = fail and don't get caught.
<5% difference lower = fail and get caught (war).
>5% difference higher = success and get caught (war).
<5% difference higher = success and don't get caught.

*Note you can only use the special ability on one target at a time, this also means one empire at a time. And to use your special ability, you cannot use up your general espionage spendings on multiple other targets. You have to focus on your primary target. If you don't use your special ability, then you can allocate your espionage spendings on multiple targets like usual to get the general intels on the other empires.

More races, many more minor races, more dialogue options for different races, more FEMALE character/ race representatives!!!!, bigger variety of anomalies and effects- maybe different graphics for different anomalies and graphics when you build something unique, advisor character options, more choices/questionsregarding alignment- I agree with Space Butler's comments., more/ better political and economic options at start. Frankly more combat and ship options would not be of any worth to me.

Sorry if some of these have been said before, but here goes:

Scenarios don't matter much to me, as I've only played the game in sandbox mode.

What I'd like to see:

New Races (which we were told we're getting)

More diplomacy options.

I'd like espionage to be enhanced so you could select exactly what kind of things you want your spies doing.

A custom map editor. Just because I don't play scenarios doesn't mean I wouldn't like to make some

More tech branches.

More benefit to aligning with good/evil as opposed to neutral

I'd love to see TerrorStars make a return.

more eye candy of course

Better planetary invasion, perhaps even spread over multiple turns, taking sections of the planet at a time... And not using a planets population as soldiers, seperate them. Perhaps adding ground forces as buildable items.

Planetary bombardment.

Different races colonizing different quality planets... i.e. thalan for, i dunno, methan atmosphere worlds... humans and altarians like X class, thalans and drengin Y, iconians and torians Z, etc... etc...

Ability to colonize and terraform class 0 worlds

a planet destroying weapon

ok, long shot on this one, but a branching tech tree, where you could choose to follow an organic based technology tree, or a metalic based, or temporal based, or cybernetic based, etc... etc... with different advantages and faults

diplomatic borders in addition to cultural borders

defense satelite class hulls (larger but immoble)

Fighter carriers! i.e. new weapon class: Fighters

Gigantic ship class

more empire scale and galactic scale "wonders"

planet based defense weapons, i.e. superbeams, missile center, planetary sheilds

sporadic discovery of precursor technology

PERMINANT WORMHOLES



That's all i could come up with right now.. just ideas!

Aside from the usual -- diplomacy, espionage, and the like -- I'd pay for a map, scenario, and campaign editor. Good, official ones with dialogue editing and technology toggling and stuff...

Carriers and Fighters

Fighter bay modules that allow no-engine fighters to be fleeted with a fast carrier, one vessel per bay, up to the player's current logistics limit.

Players could then design a BattleStar/Carrier that could 'carry' a wing of fighters, and still have some missiles and defense of it's own. Or a Warp-Harness/TugBoat (Star Wars, Star Trek), that could be little more than an engine assembly to transport one vessel/weapons platform.

Getting carried away/enjoying them /'s.

More detailed invasion defense. Like the invaders have numerous options available to them, I'd like to see something similar happen to the defenders. Stuff such as:

Guerrilla warfare (200BC): You know the area like the back of your hand, and try to use that to your advantage. This denies you the use of your heavier weaponry, but hopefully your knowledge of the planet will make up for it. Lowers the advantage factor of the defender by between 30% and 50%, and the attackers by between 40% and 55%. While this may not seem that good, it does help if the enemy has a large advantage factor bonus (think about it, an advantage of 6 going to 3 isn't that much, but going from 48 to 24 changes alot). Also destroys a few planetary improvements

Sabotage (500BC): You know you're not going to win this, so you decide to deny the enemy vital advantages. Destroys between 80% and 100% of planetary improvements, and has a 50% chance of lowering planet quality.

Traditional warfare (300BC): Standard defensive warfare, like what's in the game already.

"One man has the gun, when the one with the gun falls, the man behind him picks up the gun" (0BC, and I know the name is too long, I just couldn't resist): Lowers your own advantage factor by 1, but is cheap.

Flee! (100BC per billion people on planet): While the enemy try to land, half the planet's population is loaded onto transports and sent away, so they can survive the coming onslaught. Basic colony ship(s) holding up to half the planet's population are given a free move away from the planet, and then can move as usual.

Edit: Additional: I like Logic sequence's idea for a "Defense Satilite" class hull. Perhaps something a little cheaper then a large size hull, with similar hull space but with a pathetic range and halved base movement of any engines placed on them. Then again, when I can afford it I place defensive destroyers on every one of my empire's planets.

No multiplayer.

Wormhole technology sub-tree that branches off the mid to high end research, allowing you to build "wormhole stations" that create a permanent wormhole between 2 stations, plus a route-finder that understands and can take advantage of them.

Better route-finder.

No multiplayer.

Better AI.

The ability to hide functional components inside a hull, so as to not disturb the aesthetics of custom hull designs, i.e. Battlestar Galactica or Star Trek ships with big, honking missile launchers hanging off them look stupid.

No multiplayer.

Minor races that can grow into major races when a major race has been eliminated.

The ability to capture enemy ships in combat using a special "boarding module", successful capture not only gives you the ship(s), but also a chance to gain technology if that ship contains tech you don't have yet.

Oh, and did I mention NO MULTIPLAYER?!?!?

I checked the ablity to modify an event at https://www.galciv2.com/mods/gc2modsdoc.htm#Events and will outline what changes I wish in stages from (what I think is) the most simple to the most complicated. I don't know of course, I haven't seen cold hard code to tell what's possible. Here's what I have to propose:


Phase 0: GOOD THINGS TO HAVE FOR ANY PHASE OF THIS MODIFICATION

0.1 NEXT EVENT TURN Use this line to set when the next event will fire. Can use any positive integer, any positive integer range (eg. 3-10) or the word RANDOM which will use the current random timer to divine when the next event fires. Note that it may not be a good idea to keep RANDOM, as your plot might then hang in more complicated implementations of this plot device.

0.2 Change GOOD/NEUTRAL/EVIL-OPTION to GOOD/NEUTRAL/EVIL-OPTION# eg. GoodOption01, NeutralOption03 The only thing that these will do now is set the icon (just in case you can't figure out which is an evil act) and keep the VALUE, ATTRIBUTE, WEIGHT, AND POPCHANGE working correctly... or with less modification... maybe? The idea is here to allow more than 1 of each morality choice, and perhaps even allow more than 3 choices.

0.3 Name tokens in dialogue. PLAYERRACE# and PLAYERNAME# (# if randoms allowed in multiplayer), and AIRACE# AINAME# for each AI in play, whatever their race and name may be. Will help in making generic, interracial randoms.

0.4 Replace values with keywords where possible. This will make things longer to type out, but easier to check and therefore modify.


Phase 1: LINEAR, LINKED, PLOTLINE EVENTS.

Though the controls are complete for a single, encapsulated event, a linked number of events require 2 things:

1.1 NEXT EVENT This line will dictate which event to fire next time there is a random event; Use the internal name or RANDOM if there is no specific event to fire after this one

1.2 RANDOM EVENT? Set this to NO if you don't want it fired on a RANDOM event selection. Ensures you don't start a set of linked events within the middle of a linked set, causing chaos and confusion.


Phase 2: MULTILINEAR, LINKED PLOTLINE EVENTS.

2.1 Discard NEXT EVENT as a part of EVENT. And change to GOOD/NEUTRAL/EVIL-OPTION NEXT EVENT, or if you've managed to follow 0.2, GOOD/NEUTRAL/EVIL-OPTION# NEXT EVENT. Now, each choice has a next event attached to it, and therefore you can control the next event as a result of the previous event's choice. Choose-your-own-adventure here we come!


Phase 3: A MORE COMPLICATED AND DISCRIMINATING EVENTTYPE

3.1 EVENTTYPE becomes a group, rather than a single number. This number (the type of event that triggers the random) is now known as SITUATIONS.

3.1.1 SITUATIONS should obtain a lot of additional values.
-For instance, colonizing a world might be broken down into 3 values, one for a 5-9 class world, another for a 10-14 class world, and so on. Ideally, there should be a value/keyword for the following:
-colonizing a world (preferably in a class grouping)
-Invading a world, AND if that invasion succeeded or failed. (preferably, it should also be known who the defending race was, if it was a major race, or MINOR if it was a minor race)
-Defending a world from Invasion, and if that defense succeeded or failed. (again, knowing the other player involved would be a good thing to know)
-Discovering an anomaly (classed by anamoly type would be preferable)
-establishing a Starbase (its type and the territory its in is useful information.)
-ANY, for those generic end-of-turn events that are the norm right now.

3.1.2 Instead of reading a single number, SITUATIONS should be able to read any number of numbers and use them as if it was a large, block IF statement. For instance, a event might trigger due to a planetary defense OR planetary attack.

3.2 OTHER RACE INVOLVED could be sent as an alternative to lumping the type of event with who else was involved. In fact, it would be the better way to do it, from a design standpoint. Or my standpoint. Anyway, values for all major races and one value for when another race isn't involved, such as with minor races, uninhabited planets or things done in neutral space. If something is done in your own space, It may be a good idea to make this respond with your own empire, to help preq. internally triggered plotlines.

3.3 RACE RELATIONS WITH is a set of two values, one being the race, the other the required relationship. All areas from AT WAR to ALLIANCE should be covered, one value for UNKNOWN (haven't found them yet) and one extra value for active trading or embargoing.

So, now we have a plot that develops according to the player's choice and can be triggered by any number of specific events. What's left?


phase 4: Multiple plots at once.

4.1 Take any small number, and make an 2 arrays out of it. Let us say...4. Each cell of the array has one of three values:
-A specific event to play.
-choose any random event, or any event that matches prerequisites.
-a Event complete flag.

How this works is like a randomized playlist; It moves through ONE of the arrays. Whenever it plays an event, it flags the cell. If any event calls for another event, it is sent to a random cell that has random in it as its event play in the inactive array. Once the active array is complete, it resets the array to all random values and switches active and inactive arrays.

The reason to do this is to limit the amount of time to the next plot point to a reasonable level, while allowing multiple plots to be played at once.


There. That's my idea. Or the beginning of one. It'd be great if there was more links between events, the UP and the actual gameworld. For instance, an anomaly that triggers a random event that in turn places a ship, or gives a otherwise unavailable technology, in turn discussed in the UP. Or even a UP decision that causes a plot within one's empire on how you implemented that solution, or the problems it caused. More on that when I think on how actual, bona fide scripts would work.