Steal Technology: Assuming that each race implements the same concepts (shields, armor, lasers, etc.) differently, it would seem to me that each race could steal/learn technology from other races, and have the benefits add up (i.e. if you acquired all of the metal mining technologies from each race, your pace would be 90% or so.) If you were playing against a player of the same race, you could learn their technologies and boost your technolgy tree.

Assault Shuttles: Mentioned this before... MOO II had assault shuttles for taking over other ships. You could then take the ship back to your ship yard to scuttle it and learn/earn the technology the other race used to build the ship.

Planetary build queues: Early in the game, every choice for a tactical/logistic slot is crucial. However, later in the game I find that I'm queuing up the exact same items in the exact same order. Would be nice to have an automated build order that would be implemented for each new planet/asteroid colonized.

Phase Lanes: Would love the ability to destroy/create phase lanes between planets. Would add a new offensive tactic seal an enemy in a self-contained pocket or make them take the long way around) and defensive tactic (have a huge fleet coming to get you, seal off your corner of the universe until you can mass enough ships to fight it off). Costs/penalties for doing this should be huge.

Capture vs/ destroying planets and infrastructure: Instead of bombarding a planet and wiping out the population, I would love the ability to capture and hold a planet and the surrounding platforms. Capture a lab from another race and you learn the technolgies that that race has learned. Capture an enemy frigate factury and you can produce those ships.

Mobile Control Points: I would love to be able to put a control point in/near a wormhole and build defensive platforms around it. Likewise, be able to put a refinery near mining asteroids to speed up acquisition of materials.

Intercept vs. Follow: Someone else mentioned it previously, but ships should be able to intercept enemy ships and not just follow them.

Planet-based defenses: Reminescent of the Rebel Ion Cannon in Empire Strikes Back, planet-based weapons that could strike at capital ships.

Intelligent auto-placement of defensive platforms: Whenever I have auto-placement on, the build ship always seems to place my turrets on the "backside" of my planet. Logically, I want my turrets closer to phase lanes that connect to planets that are out of my control. Instead, the build ships always seem to put the turrets nearest the phase lanes that connect to my own planets. Enemy ships shouldn't be pouring out of phase lanes that connect to my planets -- they should be coming in through the other phase lanes.

Ship-based artifacts: The artifact bonuses seem to give general buffs (i.e. all ships make jumps faster). I'd like to see specific artifacts that can only be used by one ship. Would make you pay closer attention to upgraded ships.

Simplify logistics/tactical slots: To my way of thinking, logistics and tactical upgrades for a planet could be done differently. I think that planet populations of a certain size should be able to support N number of logistics/tactical platforms. So instead of upgrading log./tact. slots for a planet, you would do your best to upgrade the population. Log./tact. slots would be determined by the size of the planet and the size of the population.

Earning squadrons: I know - this is a game - but to be "realistic", if a cap ship is going to have squadrons attached to it, the cap ship should start out with them. Adding a bay for squadrons would involve massive restructuring of a ship and training of its crew. I find it a little silly for a cap ship to be out in the middle of nowhere and all of a sudden, in the middle of pitched battle, the ship has automatically carved out its insides to support an additional fighter/bomber bay. The cap ships should either start out with the max slots for fighters/bombers, or should involve returning to a repair facility to have them installed.

My $00.02

i would like seeing more powerful superweapons too,like gaint capital ship sized nukes now that would be fun,nukes flying every which way colliding with each other,ships,and planets,choas fun! 

I would like a single capital ship for everyone that you can only get one of in your profile.You go out of the game and you can put your own parts on it and the cost would vary like Battle For Middle Earth II.

And, yes, add some variety to space.

An official expansion with new units, expansion to the tech tree, and new world types would make the game even better.

I agree that recalling capital ships to install physical upgrades makes sense...

I have often thought that in the heat of battle, the crew quickly reads through the owner's manual for the ship, or through experience, finds the little red button somewhere on the ship that activates the ability (and with further experience, finds the extra switched next to that red button in order to upgrade those abilities)...

---This brings to mind Ripley in the Alien movie fumbling around with the self-destruct device, going to and from the instructions printed on the wall...

haha!so funny!

It really is a great game. Just one little update for me:

Add a progress bar to the top button on planet icons. I can see that I have ships queued, but I cannot see if I am close to popping out something without clicking. It would be even better to see a progress bar in the empire tree. Then you wouldn't even need to click on the planet to see what you need to see, everything would be in the empire tree.

Better command and control I think is essential. A player should be able to alter the default behavior of his ships and strikecraft without having to individually give such orders to each ship. One specific example I can think of pertains to the behavior of interceptors. Interceptors will mindlessly pursue enemy bombers, often allowing themselves to be destroyed by enemy interceptors in doing so. In certain situations, this is desireable, especially if the enemy bomber threat is significant. In other situations, if the enemy has mostly interceptors and I judge the bomber threat to not be enough to justify expending my interceptors to kill them, then this is not a good thing. Unfortunately, even after the bombers are essentially suppressed, the interceptors will continue hunting stragglers whil ignoring attacks by enemy interceptors.

I would like to be able to issue a blanket order to all my interceptors ordering them to concentrate on enemy interceptors and ignore the bombers. This is just one example. Another example is disabler cruisers, especially Hoshiko and Subjugator. These cruisers tend to pick poor targets for disabling with demo bots / suppression. I'd like to be able to issue a blank order to all my disablers to use their disable abilities on on heavy cruisers, or LRFs, and not expend those abilities against cruiser carriers or lesser frigates without having to select every single disabler and manually order it to disable a selected target ship. Battles are simply too large and too confusing for that.

First, I love the game! SOSE has helped me quit smoking. Because the game is so good, I can't take the time to go buy smokes. I can't wait for the expansions. Things I would like to see:

New races with new abilities and ships

New planet types

The ability to terraform planets - to increase population potential

AI that fights instead of running away

Single Player Campaign for each race WITH cutseens

Planetary defenses such as anti capital ship weaponary

The ability to zoom in to planet level and see the people/aliens running about - probably not gonna happen but I like the idea

The ability to trade, steal, or learn technology from other races

Phase lane mines or possibly a device to cloak phase lanes so that enemies won't see them.

Some of the things I meantioned were stated above by others. Some of the things I mentioned are in the 7 Deadly Sins MOD by DANMAN. DANMAN you are the man!

 

 

Pirates -- I wish there were more options for pirates than just turning them off, which I have taken to doing because they just become an annoyance in AI matches.  Primarily, an easy feature to implement would be a 1-click outbidding option, so that with one click I can auto-raise the bounty on a player to above the current high bid.  Maybe I'm missing this, but I'm sick of clicking 20 times just to keep pirates off my back.

But also, I guess I wish the pirates were deeper, or that they would provide additional benefits if you pay them enough bounty money over time, or if they are in an advantageous position for you, maybe you could pay them to give you ship vision.

I would like a story mode for each race, 

Stronger Plant Defenses systems,

What jamesp81 noted above,

Add in a couple more higher speed settings.  As good as the game is I can't play as long in one sitting as most can.

To be able to make special structures on asteroids or moons that orbit planets. (not resource asteroids) They might be more effective and have a higher health and armor.

If not on asteroids then on the planets surface so that when being bombed planets can shoot back (but only at ships shooting the planet). You would get defence guns when u upgrade a planets health or military slots. This might make siege ships more important in games when you are taking planets.

Another (probly a bad idea) to be able to research an orbital structure that destroys a planet you own for strategic purposes. Destroyed planets might take 2 times longer to phase jump too and the remaing chunks can be mined for crystal and metal. Also defenece structures get a defence bonus in its gravity well but logistic structures cant be made. Another thing that might be interesting is if your ships are in a destroyed planets grav well their shield restore only works at 60% and when their shields are down they take damage to their hull over time.

wont let me edit but one last thing i forgot to mention.

 

Basic AI additions are a must. ships should know basic intercept vectors, it can even be something which is improved by technology upgrades but should be a standard of all ships. captial ships should have a common sence clause built in or the ability to establish Final Fantasy style AI programming.