Well... Interesting but I don't think it's really doable in this game. Speed of ships is also supposed to be tied to the mass around, so in an empty place the ships just wouldn't move much. In your model, ships would start moving 1 tile per turn  and they crawl down to 1 tile per two turns etc until they couldn't go anywhere.... It would negate the strategies you are thinking of.

Everything you want is available simply by increasing the size of the map you play on.  Which, incidentally, is exactly what you're asking for, whether you realize it or not.

Now, the bigger issue is having an option which has the positioning of stars and planets cluster towards the center of the map. 

The same style of game play you're after is available now in GC2, if you use one of the larger maps, with few stars in tight clusters.

All GC3 needs to do is have a different available setting for how it places star systems on the map size you select. 

I did think about this.  I really like the idea but wasn't sure how it would be received.  I almost expect that something similar to this may be in the game.  After all in the trailer, the Terran Fleet comes out of a pocket universe... What is said pocket universe?!

Also, I have by BS in Astrophysics.  I did my senior thesis on satellite galaxies and how they interact with dark mater.  Basically what your saying is to insert colonizable satellite galaxies into the game.  This would be SOO COOL!

-TheTraviler

*Spoiler Warnings*

The pocket universe used to be prison for the Dread Lords, an ancient race that once tried to wipe out all the inferior races in the galaxy while they were still in their infancy. I mean literally inferior, as in the Dread Lords were practically god like magical. It would take millions of well equipped humans just to kill one. They did not consider the inferior races to be worth keeping around, better for them to make use of the resources that they would otherwise waste.

They fought a war with the Arnor who disagreed with them. Before the Arnor were defeated completely, they managed to create pocket universe and trap the Dread Lords there. Many eons later, the Drengin, one of the inferior races, opened the door trapping the Dread Lords and unleashing them into the galaxy once more. With no equivalent race to stop them, the good inferior races paid a terrible price to stop them, and while the evil ones gave ground and watched. Once the good guys managed to deal a severe blow to the Dread Lords, the evil guys struck knowing the victor would be weakened and the loser nearly defeated.

The Terrans, one of the good guys, were given a difficult situation. When all hope seemed lost, they were given an incredibly useful piece of advice, go colonize the pocket universe. The Dread Lords having been trapped there for eons left as quickly as they could. In doing so, they left behind a lot of toys, really powerful toys. When the Terran force arrived, they found a solar system with an infrastructure designed to fulfill the needs of a god like race. The Terrans came made to realize that they could use this stuff to become incredibly powerful, powerful enough to start a crusade against their most terrible of enemies, despite their terrible loses.

Unfortunately for everyone, a race claiming to be from the future claims that the humans will start a crusade that will threaten the very existence of everything. They've been warning people about this for nearly 2 games now, and now the humans might now have the means to do just that.