The invasion and ground combat component in GC2 always seemed overly abstract. I mean, we're able to design a starship down to the nuts and bolts, but invasions are not much more than a dice roll.

I would like to see the pre-invasion capabilities in GC2 and whatever else you can dream up separated from an invasion event.  I should be able to orbit an undefended world and work it over with bombardment, gas, psych-war, whatever with any appropriate starship--perhaps a module for each attack type to research and build.   The results might take the form of degraded production, and influence/morale effects, losing a tile's occupant (or even losing the tile like could happen with a GC2 invasion if I choose the nuke from orbit option.) Being able to target a specific tile might be interesting so building planetary defense next to important targets could become important.

In conjunction with the above ship to shore combat capability, the planetary defense could be upgraded to something more than passive. At the bottom of the gravity well you're in a bad spot, but some capability to shoot back at least a little would be nice and might be a way to deal with the camp and blast strategy. You could think of the PD object as a form of grounded starship with an immense hull size perhaps. A large target.

Related to that, I really really really want to be able to shield a planet just like the intro video. You're just teasing me.  This could be a specialized and really expensive planetary defense object and perhaps requires an adjacent power/fusion thingie which would give a reason to research those useless-to-me items.  Its effect might be to prohibit invasions and completely protect defense ships. However, ships wouldn't be able to leave and there could be a morale effect so a method to turn it on and off would be needed. When its off it would function as just a normal planetary defense object. Turning it on might take a turn and perhaps burn some of your cash to keep it on. No tourism, no outside trade, etc.

And I want a Dorsai unit that's better than the Stellar Marines, Bolo's which could be a moving planetary defense object that can't be targeted from orbit, and a Hammer's Slammers armor unit.

--David