- There should be an "next turn" option even if there are still idle ships. If I send them on guard, they we'll vanish in oblivion, but I just don't want to move them "this turn" (maybe because the front fleet needs to clear out planetary defenses first before I continue moving the troop transports, or whatever). Allow us to finish a round when we think we're done, instead of spacebar-ing through a lot of ships that we'll move the next turn again. This takes up a lot of my turn-time.
- A useful guard command that doesn't get thrown off by a random freighter coming into range. Only enemies should wake a guard. Perhaps two different commands, "wake me on anything" or "wake me when a friggin Drengin Deathstar fleet is approaching".
- Planetary governors, see above.
- Revamp of the starbase construction, Modules should be built via planets/starbases themself instead of constructor spam.
- An auto-upgrade feature for custom ships. Say I have a Mk3 variant of a cruiser, then I get a shiny new laser/shield whatever tech. In higher-difficulty level games it makes a lot of sense to bring this technological breakthrough to the frontlines fast, so I have to redesign a ship. Allow us to just easy-click say "Upgrade that ship design" in the shipyard, maybe with a few sliders, "2 latest engines, 2 life support, 1 shield, rest best mass drivers" or something like that. Personally, I always use invisible parts for the functional parts, i.e. all my engines, weapons etc. are just hidden inside the ship.
-Ability to have variants of ships. I design a new ship type visually. In the course of the game, I make various variants of it, with lasers, disruptors etc. as tech progresses. Maybe it would be good to allow ingame a variant option for custom ships, where all variants are subsummed, Mk1, Mk2 etc. . Only the latest variant or player-choosen variants would be displayed. Right now, all count as different ships, and when replaying with the same race/shipstyle, all that variants get thrown into your face. For the default ships, only the latest variant is shown. Something similar for custom-made ships. Perhaps in last game, I went with mass drivers, but now I'll redesign my variant with missles instead, so all former variants are useless in this game.
- A "Do" and "undo" button for the ship designer. Would help a lot if you click wrong, and saves a lot of time.
- Ability to name shipyards, or have a small map to know where that thing is. I always have to exit to shipyard to see where it is stationed, and what to built depending on its position relative to the frontline.
- More sorting options for ships. Make sure the system can handle a lot of different ships easily, without the player getting lost. Over 1000 cool shipdesigns already in the steam workshop, more to come. Allow us to sort downloaded ships ourselves.
- The most useless click in the game for me is the "Resume" button in the shipyard. If I built something, the shipyard should be active, if I don't built something, the shipyard should be "inactive", without me having to switch it on or off. That is really nerving me, and should be handled more intelligently.
- Better tech labeling. If I have researched a specialization, I go to the Diplo screen and want to trade it for my neighbor's specialization. This is always a click-fest. I have to exit the diplo screen again, look up the techscreen to see how the other specialization is called, and then reenter the Diplo screen. Maybe: "kinetic specialization I: Name xy" would help.
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Unrelated, BUT WE NEED CUSTOM COLORS FOR SHIPS! Especially now with the tons of cool ships/races from the Steam workshop.