When choosing attributes for your race, there should be a negative option for a few items.
I.e. weapons -10% which would give you an additional point(s) to spend on other attributes.

Similar to MOO2

1) I think that some planets with hostile enviroments may have SEVERAL factors (eg. radioactive AND toxic, heavy gravity AND barren AND toxic) simultaneously. A player must have all corresponding tech to colonize such planets. This seems to be more realistic

2) Planets with hostile enviroments may have some bonuses. For example, heavy gravity have defense bonuses against invasion, radioactive worlds often contain areas with production bonuses etc.

Here is a refined idea of mine for the expansion ...

1. Customizing opponents; allow a trade meter from " never to frequent "
- this way the AI would either trade with you frequently or never during the game.

2. Allow a cloaking device built on scout or attack ships only after researching the right tech. Maybe after researching the counter-espionage tech will enable cloaking device.

3. Allow a tech to counter the cloaking device. Maybe sensors level five will enable anti-mirror sensors on ships that will allow to see cloaked ships.

4. Allow for each race to research a "super device" to be built on planets just like the "super personality" option unique for each race or having the option to customize while creating an opponent. For example ...

Invincibility grid = it will temporarily shield your entire solar system from any attack. The shield will prevent all social construction and slow all military construction as long as it's on since it requires alot of energy to sustain it. Once you power-off the device, it will take significant amount of time to re-use it.

Shadow field processor = it will make all of your ships around the planet at a certain radius cloaked even with the latest sensor tech as long as the ships remain in the area of influence. This tech will be permenant.

Super-nova conductor = it will destroy an entire solar system after blowing up the sun. It's a device that you can install it only on a scout ship with no other modules on it except the "super-nova conductor". All you have to do is fly the scout ship with the device on a collision course towards the sun, if your luck enough not to get intercepted or else it won't work. It will take significant amount of time to build another one.

Worm-hole device = it will open a stable one way conduite to anywhere in the galaxy which lasts only 4 weeks. You have to place it on a scout ship to initiate the point of entry and click on the map for its destination. It will take significant amount of time to build another one.

Super brain wave emmiter = at a certain radius around the planet, it will automatically convert enemies hostage along with their ships; thus using their ships at will as long as your in the area of influence. The emmiter will prevent all social construction and slow all military construction as long as it's on since it requires alot of energy to sustain it. Once you power-off the emmiter, you no longer have control over those ships, so you hope you caused enough damage to other ships or made peace.

Nano-probe bloom = at a certain radius around the planet, this device will cause all enemy ships go crazy. It will attack all systems in the ships by making it lose some engines, weapons, defences, sensors etc... The ships will lose their effectiveness, lose their logistics and can't remain in fleets. The device can only be used once but the effect on the ships will be permanent. You can build the device again but it will take significant amount of time.

Bio-viral technology = this will create a virus specific to a race that will slowly kill their population unless they find the cure which will take time. All you have to do is install the device on a scout ship and fly it to the enemy race's planet. And from there, the virus will spread from one planet of theirs to another. It will take time to research another virus specific to another race.

Most, if not all, of what I would like has been mentioned somewhere, but I'm just adding my name to it...

I'm going to try and stick with things that can probably be done for an update as compared to a new game.

-Rebalancing of ethical alignments; and/or bonuses to making "good" decisions when prompted.

-Teams/Coalitions: If I am able to select "Team" for another race in the setup screen to side with myself (which is already there) then I would like to be able to put other races against us.

-Revamp Espionage: The info is pretty much there already if you know where to look, in general the information that you can/do learn is not really essential as is. Also, there is no drawback to using Espionage whatsoever (or true benefit for the Super Spy ability), diplomatic ramifications would be nice (either lowered perception of your race (relations) or demands)

-Economic Tile bonuses

-Agree that respawning anomolies would be very nice

-more portraits/logos

-More available starting points for Custom Races

-I'm sure that the defense bug will be fixed, so no worries there (since the stated idea is right, implentation just didn't work out correctly)

-Rebalancing of tech improvement modules, there are many times I have found it to be more cost effective and space efficient to use multiple lower techs than one new tech (example, I have found the Ion Drive to be the most cost effective, so I often use it multiple times instead of the higher engine techs, esp when I have full miniturization skills...I wish I had it front of me, but like the Hyperwarp MK III costs 140 with a speed of 5 while I can use Warp V (or similar) with a cost of 60 and speed of 3 (thus two Warp Vs is better and cheaper than a HW MK III)


Things I'd like to see eventually

-Borders

-Request/Offer in diplomacy screen (actually, I'd like a more complex diplomatic model ideally)

-With the UP:
-Greatest influence may pick from a short list of topics (4?) for vote
-Being able to see where your allies/close relationship races are leaning for their vote, there's nothing I hate more than me and my ally cancelling each other out.

-A map/scenario editor

Thanks for asking all of us!!!

I like the borders idea of yours too

As a fan of Civ4 who just got the Gold edition, I have a few interface gripes.

1) Exiting the shipyard when you entered it through a planet build ship screen should take you back to the planet, not the main screen. I often design a new ship after a planet finishes a production, but when I finish, I forget what planet I was working on and have to search for it. Which brings us to point

2) Fix the search for planet function, currently it seems to go to a random planet with the same starting letter. Playing in a large map makes it quite useless. Also make a shortcut (Ctrl-F) for it.

3) When exiting a planet screen, the map should be centered on that planet, not the previous position. Often when I just use the event icons to build stuff, I don't realize a planet is in a backwater, or is in enemy territory. Knowing that helps know what to build there.

4) The Esc key should merely exit the current screen, not go to the game menu. It'd be fine to go to the game menu on the main map, but it's kinda useless when in the shipyard or diplomacy screens. (a little Civ4-ish I know)

and a few other items

5) Allow the automoves of ships to occur at the beginning of a turn, not the end (again, civ4). A game option in the menu would be nice. I know its so you can cancel a move later, but I rarely use it, and it would speed things up a bit at the end of turn.

6) Queuing research as mentioned would be nice, as would the spying improvements.

7) Allow starbases to queue what improvements to build next and to automatically build them when the next constructor comes along. Then you could get a planet to set a rally on a starbase and voila! instant starbase improvement with little work!.

8) Allow when 'upgrading' a ship to simply add a mk2 or mk3 to the end of the previous design's name automatically (ala Sword of the Stars). As well as automatically deleting the previous design. These would be best implemented with a game option for what specifics you would want (eg. delete or obsolete design, retire ships, etc).

1) More planet tile resources that correspond to the things you can find in anomalies (bonuses for cash, soldiering, defense, speed, etc.). Exploiting the resource would require the player to place a relevant building on the tile. Perhaps surplus resources could even be made tradable as in Civilization IV.

2) The tactical combat looks good but feels a bit superfluous. The action would be much more like a dogfight if the ships could only fire when their weapons were facing the target. This would make speed and maneuverability more important when designing ships and fleets. Do I pick an extra engine or an extra weapon? Do I make fleets of small fast ships or big slow ones? It would also be useful to be able to choose to attach weapons on fixed points or turrets (with a tradeoff in size/cost).

3) The UPC is an interesting but underused aspect of the game design. It would be nice to have more control over the agenda. How about a rotating chairmanship where the current chairman gets to choose which resolution the UPC votes on? An option to choose the frequency of meetings would be nice. If the UPC's importance is boosted, an option to buy votes in the diplomatic screen would be useful.

I would love a convenient way to know which modules can currently be built on any given starbase (and exactly what they do) without having to send a constructor there to find out. The way it is now, you have to GUESS about where you should send your constructors, and if you are wrong you waste a lot of time.

An quick and easy way to allow this would be to just use the exact same dialog box that pops up when you send a constructor there to build (showing you what you can build) - only you can't actually build it without a constructor there.

I have a few more suggestions for an update.

First of all I like the suggestion of giving custom races more points for their individual startup abilities however, why not just give them an extra page of options with 15 points and 10 points in the regular options that way it would be more like the regular races.

Secondly the Thalian Empire and the Yor Collective both have miniteraztion bonus's which you can't pick in the start up settings, it would be nice to have that as an option bonus for any race including custom races for you to spend your points on.

I don't know what anyone else thinks about this but, that's my suggestion.

Research military doctrines for fleet combat that add modifiers based on a matrix comparason to the enemy's doctrine.

Allow custom races to pick the Super trait of their choice

Custom Race ideas:
1. Ability to name their star and planets separately. Maybe we should even be able to design their whole star system, spending some amount of points like the starting abilities and technologies. You could put all of the PQ into one planet (like the Thalans have) or spread it out more evenly (I think the Korx system is like this). Maybe you could include planets with special traits; say you start with a second PQ12 planet but it's radioactive; that could have an interesting effect.

2. This is minor, but I think we should be able to specify the short and long form of the race's name (like Terrans/Terran Alliance, Drengin/Drengin Empire, Korx/Dominion of Korx, et al.). I believe there's a place for both in dialogue menus, and it isn't always the first word of the race's name (like the aforementioned Dominion of Korx). The short form might not even appear in the long form: for instance, I could have the Goa'uld/United Alliance of the System Lords.

I think the AI values starbases (especially resources) too highly when it comes to trade. One influence miner, half the map away from their empire is not worth 5 decent developed planets.

Things that wouldn't be massive new features, eh?

* More random events.

* Speaking of which, I wish random events would continue even after Xeno Ethics. It's silly that it's like "Okay, we're officially Neutral. Woo hoo, now I won't have to weasel out of a random issue ever again!" The events could still happen, but maybe you'd be locked into your alignment's choice (or maybe you could choose differently each time, but have to pay for it).

* Have there be two relationship ratings: how the other race acts to your face (ie the normal rating you see on the foreign relations screen), and how they REALLY feel about you (which you can't see unless you have good espionage and/or deduce it from their empire's actual actions). This way, evil or manipulative races could put you off-guard with friendly posturing even as they're preparing to conquer you.

* Have the different races value different traits other than Good/Evil. Right now, every race likes treaties and trade. Every race likes military strength. Every race hates excessive influence. Every race hates it when you wipe out too many races. The Yor want to wipe out all organic life, but you'd never know it from all the freighters and stuff they'll send and accept. It'd be nice if a few races felt threatened by bloated militaries (hurting relations if your military rating is too high), if a few races felt high influence is cool ("We admire your strong culture"), if some of the evil races like you for conquering too many others ("We admire all the ass-kicking you do"), if isolationist races hate you for setting up trade ("We resent you trying to make us dependent"), if the murderous Yor had a killer economy (machines don't need sleep or free time) but no trade with those miserable organic races, and so on. This would make the diplomacy game more interesting, because there would be fewer things you can do that automatically win over everyone.

* Give spies a "observe quietly" option...for when you want to learn about a race (raise your espionage level), but not disrupt their production. Instead of putting them on a specific square, you could put them in a special box or something, where they can't be eliminated, but aren't holding their target back.