Okay I have seen on a number of threads the complaint that after you have researched your teck tree and built your fleet there is nothing to do with your money but place bounty. I have a few sugestions.

Add, in the top teir of the reasearch tree, an intelligence agency. You could then spend your money and resources spying and formenting probems for your enemies (or allies). You would also have to spend money on counter intel.

It could work a bit like the culture system. Lines of infiltration slowly advance acording to how much you spend and when your intell reaches a system you can see whats in there. I dont like just spending money and getting all their info at once once you reach a certain level against them. For the real time game a slower planet by planet system would be better.

Or you could make spy ships that infiltrate. Once it infiltrates, if it gets that far, the ship is used up. Depending on the enemies spending on counter intell there would be a chance every min or so of the spy getting discovered. Make the ships very expensive. Maby twice as much as a KoL. This would be an entirely late game diversion for all the extra money you have for the last few hours of the game.

There are a few more ideas I am working on but I havent thought them out yet and I promised not to make too many long winded posts hahaha.