1. Xplore -For star and planets generation, the GURPS role playing game system books might help provide some meat here. I have both 3rd and 4th editions and they have detailed tables for anything, from number of planets to hydrographic coverage. There are even tables to create random aliens if you guys feels up to it. Let me know what kind of info/characteristics you want for the planets, and I could provide you guys with a list to work with -It would be great to have some sort of grid/map for each planets with topographical features that gives bonus for installations. It could also provide more meat for the exploration phase by providing randomly generated resources on different planet -You talked about special resources I think, it think that would be a great idea and I hope they will have some meaningful impact, just not a percentage bonus or additionnal money. -In the same line of thinking, I hope the races will have meaningful advantages, just not some numeric bonuses. For example, Silicoid can live in any environment, Psilon have access to the whole tech tree, etc... - PLEASE, PLEASE, do not limit solar system to 5 planets. 2.Xpand and Xploit -As far as economics goes, I would like to refer to Planet's Edge(RPG) and Emperor of the Fading Sun(TBS). In the first one, in ordrer to build anything, you needed different kind of materials (organics, light metal, heavy metals, radio-actives) that you would consume from your stockpile and replenish the latter with visit to specific resource planets. - In Emperor of the Fading Sun, you needed to build resources extraction facilities, such as mines, onto the resources (energy, trace, metal) then you needed to build factories to feed your stockpile of transformed resources (electronics, chemical, monopoles, etc...). The resources building process followed a path similare to this: to build 1 0 ceram-steel, you needed to have 10 eneregy, 10 chemicals and 7 trace. In order to build 10 chemicals, you needed 10 energy and five trace. - Afterwards, in order to build anything, you would need X amount of resource Y and X amount of resource Z. - As the game progress, new technologies could be discovered in order to alleviate the micromanagement such as instant planetary scan, instead of some sort of land scout. Later in mid-game it could be instant solar system scan, mega-colony ship that instantly build every available facilities (or those selected from a template), etc... -Again, let me know what kind of economy you guys are planning on, I could help with the meat. 3.Xterminate -Please let us customize the space stations. For example, if the race on one border have shield piercing technologies, we should be allowed to put heavier armor on those stations. -I have no new idea for space combat, just a request to not put a slot limit by weapons or specials. Tonnage capacity is fine. -I would like to see a ground combat system similar to a board wargame (air units, ground units, infantry, space strike and space unit) and make it possible to last several turn. It does not have to be right away, it could be an expansion. Thanks for reading my post and good luck with your project.
Just went through my box of old games and remembered about Star Trek: Birth of Federation. In this game, there were minor races which had special techs that you could convince to join your empire/alliance/federation. Each races had racial like and dislikes which made the integration more(join on their own) or less(needed "convincing" at gunpoint) smooth. That would be something fun to add later. In order to make it even more interesting, we could also add unique resources or abilities. Another interesting add-on you guys could do, would be a quest system and if you do some sort of planetary map as previously suggested, you could add a randomized quest type missions with artifacts or clues spreaded across the galaxy that needs to be found in order to provide Ultimate Weapon X, prevent evil ancient space god from eating all the planets in the galaxy, reach the ultimate religious goal of your race, resurrect Elvis, etc... My suggestion would be to make the game as close as possible to MOO2, then create add-ons that build up on that base. It would probably be a good idea to make them as modular as possible in order to provide every one the possibility to turn off module of the expansion the players don't like or allow them to script more easily mods.
