I had suggested some of this before, and I LOVE your nova idea. Maybe even an evil tech that allows nova causing weapons, rendering entire systems uninhabitable. But maybe it is so big of a weapon you need to own a planet in the system to use it. (Maybe allow planetary shields too...come to think of it, that would be cool anyway. Shut down all production + planet growth on a planet, and spend X bc per turn to run shield, but planet and ships in orbit are untouchable, big idea here)

meteor showers, radiation damage from nebula, comets, random event of asteroid impact on planet (or new moon!), solar flares, waking an ancient robot dreadnaught that runs amok all over the map and you have to hunt it down, SOOO much can be done with this

Also, this makes starbase placement even more strategic and useful (kind of like space tile bonuses). An economic starbase might do well in a high energy area with the right module (high energy radiation collectors allow increased production) but would inhibit military and influence starbase due to increased communication interference and dangerous conditions. Likewise, an influence starbase next to a nebula or Van Allen belt or something would attract more tourists, and in empty space it would have increased effect range due to easy broadcasting. Military starbases would benefit from asteroid fields (increased defense from the difficulty of enemy fleets not being able to navigate and maneuver as well, while local ships would have been able to map the trajectories of the asteroids and avoid them) as well as putting remote weapons and sensors on asteroids. Also, military starbases inside solar systems could gain additional advantages as well, due to increased remote sensor placement options.

Whole fleet obliteration events would be great, because it would increase the underused survey ship tech's use. For example, a fleet with a survey ship in it would "see" the incoming radiation or the solar instability and could avoid it, while another fleet wouldn’t have the advanced sensors and analysis computers.

Would also love to gravity related weapons tech, as well as more nanotech and biotech related stuff.

Also, what about water planet colonization? Floating cities on gas giants? These would be awesome as starting bonuses, would help ease the "habitable planet rush" at the start of games, and make an "expansionist" civ choice a really cool option (plus beefing up the relatively small planetary improvement tech line)

Worm holes already exist in game, but what I think would be really cool would be the addition of the historically mentioned "star gates" as a really expensive project that allows instantaneous transport between gates.

Another cool space idea would be finding bonus techs (cannot be researched) in alien derelicts, and being able to find and salvage unique and powerful ships to add to your fleets (but you can't replicate them).

I would also love to additional minor races, and maybe a completely space bound race like the bentusi from homeworld or the roamers from "the saga of seven suns).

P.S. Stardock, I love what you do, great job.

P.P.S. if you think I sound creative or useful, I’d love to work for you in any capacity. So drop me a line at alex s @ blue hydra . com without the spaces if you are interested. I would jump at the chance to do some writing for the game or in the manual, either in game or back story. I’d be happy to send over my resume.

Not even, stargates are virtually a primative technology in the Gal Civ universe, it would take several years for for ship to get somewhere. It would take 10 years just for a ship to get across 3 sectors.

What would be interesting would be an upgrade to stargate technology, and that races have found ways to make the stargates more cost efficent and faster. Actually a good way to describe it; if anyone watches Stargate SG-1, you might be familiar with the term SuperGate, if not check this --

http//www.gateworld.net/omnipedia/technology/links/supergate.shtml.

They would serve as an interstellar transit system that can be established by two cooperative races. So if I want a stargate from Earth to Arcea, being the Terran Alliance I contact the Arceans and reqeust that a stargate be built between the two worlds. If agreed upon the stargate could increase the amount of tourism amongst both worlds, and would allow ships lacking faster engines and such to travel the great distance alot quicker. This way instead of simply upgrading, decommissioning or selling your older ships they can now travel through the stargate, which could be cost effective for larger empires with loads and loads of ships in their control.

However one negative is that the stargate would allow for the easiest invasion route, so you have to be careful who you establish these stargates with, and where. Another negative would be that the stargates would be expenisve to maintain, and would add on to both civilzation's spending on maintainence.

Hw about being able to build small Stargates Modules on your starbases? Maybe you could travel between two of them or appear at your homeworld or something. (On the topic of starbases, I think there should definitely be a "Hangar" module line. They would allow ships/fleets on the starbase to fight with it. Each one could allow more ships/logistics in one battle maybe.)

P.S. I love all of those other ideas and think more random events would be awesome.

Planets that fight like starbases.

I want to be able to damage planets from space with my ships. (None of that "Terror Star" junk, though that would be cool too.) I have all manner of horribly powerful captial ship weapons, but I can't do actual orbital bombardment? It's stupid, and absurdly unrealistic. (As is the fact that you can't stack ships in the same parsecs as other civs--I mean, it's A FREAKING PARSEC. THEY'D BE LIGHT YEARS APART, ABOVE OR BELOW EACH OTHER. IT'S NOT LIKE THEY'RE GOING TO RUN INTO EACH OTHER ON ACCIDENT. DUH, PEOPLE.)

But letting ships just cavort about and lay into planets from orbit doesn't make sense either, since they'd have satellites and surface-mounted launchpads, plus in-system fighters and defenses. So, the logical thing is to make planets fight back. Attack and defense should be basic planetary stats. They'd be almost exactly like Manufacturing and Research, really. There would be improvements, trade goods, capitals, etc.

Planets would have to be hard targets for balance reasons, but that wouldn't be difficult to accomplish. Initial Colonies could give, say, 75 in each of the defenses and 10 in each attack. Each planetary tile could have certain hit points, likely lots of them, and improvements would themselves have hit points (which they would lose prior to the tile itself being damaged). Tiles without hit points wouldn't ever be useable, but the ships wouldn't be able to direct their fire very accurately and they'd often just hit uninhabitable tiles anyway, such that (with the defenses and all) it'd take a lot of effort to raze a planet. You could even go so far as to let constructors build orbital defenses, though I think military starbases would work for that as-is.

I like the idea of Stars going supernova. Perhaps the stars with uninhabitable planets could become unstable at random points during the game, and essentially, explode, wiping out any starbases and ships in the vicinity. This wouldn't happen with stars that have habitable planets on, for the sake of fairness.

Often, the stars on the map without habitable planets are displayed in different colours such as Blue, Green and Deep Orange. These are the ones that could have the potential to explode. Of course, I think this would have to be quite a rare event.