Good idea but I think devs would have to change so many things for this.. so it is not likely to happen before Sins 2.. Think about this, adding new planets is impossible in a new patch (Yarlen told me in another thread), so would THIS be possible? I think not :/ It would need another expansion, not a patch I guess.

We hope anyways.

Perhaps, but then again there was that 2gb limit the devs sweared by until the modders smashed it...

You can, but you'd need a mod that reduces the total number of items that need to be loaded....this isn't just the number of assets (like # of entities, etc.) but how many objects are actually in a game...if you halved the maximum number of ships and SC, late game performance would improve substantially...

Some of the particle effects are also grossly efficient....a mod that dealt with those would help immensely...

There are a few people working on such endeavors...of course, their mods only help those who use mods, not the vanilla game itself...

We've never "Smashed" the 2GB limit. Modders have helped optimize it so its less of an issue, and LAA may bring the limit to 4GB for some (though that is hardly a "mod patch"), but that limit will be hit again eventually either way.