Artifacts are a great IDEA!

Except they already exist.

New Pirate ships- Rather then having all the pirates in TEC vessels how about giving them a mixture of ships from all available fleets? As the pirate threat grows more severe adding in a few pirated cap ships to lead their assaults woudl also make for a fun enhancement.

Actually 90% of my games are MP over LAN with my significant other and the occasional friend. Sadly in these games when we put in AI's they seem a bit limited in their response  options thus the improvement suggestion. Perhaps just enhancing them to favor a heavier cap ship usage along with their frig/cruiser spam would go a long way towards solving the problem?

Spherical moons aren't necessarily "proper". A lot of Jupiter's moons are just asteroids that got trapped by gravity and smashed to bits in collisions with other objects. Given that we can barely detect planets that are smaller than gas giants, we really can't say for sure what kind of moons are normal. But, given that Jupiter has 63 moons and not that many of them are spherical, I would wager a guess that spherical moons are the exception, not the norm.

Well, I mean artifacts similar to abandonded floating supercomputers in space. I mean not only those artifacts on planets, but more rare artifacts. When they got destroyed, the technologies are destroyed with them.

Maybe we could have rocks of different shape, some more spherical and other more rock like, just for diversity...

While some moons have atmospheres too, I don't recall which moon it is, but they discovered that one of them would have a livable atmosphere for humans and so they think about colonization of that moon, even if we're still far from it, that's a possibility.

So having rocks as ressources, other has a population bonus, etc. would be nice, it would be a nice diversity and add some more in depth strategy.

I've gave up on this "destroying planet" idea, I think indeed after a more mature reflexion that it would be over powered even if accessible towards the end of the game. Players would just spend the last battle to destroy every planet in their way and that would be a total mess and anti-game. You're all right on that one I think.

Pirate difficulty levels similar to AI-players.  I can't remember if I've mentioned this before in one of these suggestion threads.

I love what the latest patch has done with pirate scaling in-game but some different pre-set difficulty levels could give them better starting options and scaling rates.  The harder ones using cap ships might not be out of line; perhaps a cap ship could count as one of the upgrades they're allowed to buy under the new system but with weird abilities to set them apart (carriers or no carriers???). 

Pirates fleets with Advent and Vasari ships mixed in would be a cool addition as well, even if it's just cosmetic since pirates get non-standard abilities I think. 

Heck, why not have militia from different factions as well, maybe depending on the preferred planet type for each faction?  (Advent guarding, desert, Vasari guarding volcanics, and TEC getting the rest). Again, not game-changing, but just adds a little flavor.

Also, could we be able to make the nifty multi-color insignias that the militia have?  C'mon, just a secondary color, man.

there needs to be some way of simultaneously using an ability on multiple ships with one click

We have moons. Here

Pirates using capital ships has been repeatedly vetoed - it's basically been suggested for every expansion and they always say no.

Then you just have to alter the suggestion a bit.  Maybe if the pirates reach 'highest' threat level, they have their own unique 'flagship' that shows up.  Maybe it has a Shrapnel Explosive ability that deals 150 splash damage to all targets within a wide area, similar to the Marza's Missile Barrage back when it sucked/was bugged and only had 1 wave.  Give it a 90 second cooldown. 

It's still a capital ship, even if it's unique.. it's the idea that got shot down, not any specific implementation.

Pirates who would have the ability to colonize planets would be plenty of fun !!!!! But kind of a non sense too probably ! But they colonize planets then the pirates having capital ships would be make sense.

Again, if they would have capital ships and all that, why not making them in a fully custom race that would be playable...

I would enjoy to play pirates though, Just receive tons of money to finally go rush a player... lol

All of these ideas seems like very fun but would destroy the game as it is right now... so I'm glad with what we have and the way the pirates works right now, giving them any more functionnality would destroy the game IMO ! I think the patch 1.2 did it very well for pirates, we don't need to change anything anymore.

No, it is a flagship.  It wouldn't have levels, nor capital armor.  It would just be a beefed up pirate ship with an ability to match.  But there would only be one per raid, and only when the highest threat level is reached.  Which, under current implementation, wouldn't be launched unless there was a good amount of bounty out in play.  Hell, you could just reuse TEC assets and make them larger.  Maybe it looks like an enlarged Cielo.  Cutthroats are already enlarged trade frigates, minus the box of cargo. 

Hell, a single person could probably program it within a week utilizing and tweaking existing files and assets.  The idea being that pirates are at their pinnacle in terms of fleet power.  Thus a coordinating lead vessel makes sense. 

I don't see how this is hard to understand: IC does not want pirates having big ships. It doesn't matter if they use CAPITAL armor type, or if they have levels, or what they're called. It doesn't matter how long it takes to make and what assets they can reuse. As a concept, THEY DO NOT WANT IT.

They do not want Green Eggs and Ham, eh? 

Seems a bit silly in light of pirates having all of their ships become stronger than capital ships in pre-1.2 Diplomacy.  It would be a simple way to shake up the pirates a bit and add the unexpected to the game.  That seems like a good thing to me. 

How about...

Troopships  it would be nice to invade planets with a somewhat intact infrastructure, also this would mean that the influence / merchant, spreading bases could then be used to also stop potential rebellions after invasion.... Of course there could also be a whole new tech tree for the construction of military bases (planet based, draws from planetary population) for training of ground troops / equipment 

the ground combat resolution system could be something simple like in Galactic Empires 2....

More Races:

these races would gain bonuses for inhabiting planets more like their planet of origin, and penalties for planets that are more difficult to inhabit..... for example a bear-like creature might like arctic worlds, but dislike desert planets....

More types of planets

aquatic, veldt / savanah, heavy gravity, toxic atmosphere, etc.......the possibilities are endless

I'm highlighting this particular idea of yours:

because it simply will not work in Sins. Quite a bit of that would require heavily redoing the engine, which is something the devs have explicitly stated will not happen.

Your other to ideas, however, are a bit different in quality. The "More Planets" idea is actually something that's already been brought up numerous times (you probably already know that), and ATM, we're not sure if it'll happen.

More races is already arguably happening, as we've already been informed that we're getting new factions. As for planet-specialization, this is already present in the factions we've got right now; Advent have more Desert development techs, while the TEC have more Terran, and the Vasari have more Volcanic. Note that the Vasari are the only ones with a lot of Volcanic population upgrade researches; all three factions can upgrade Terran worlds while the TEC and Advent can both upgrade Desert worlds.

To my knowledge, all three factions can upgrade Ice planet populations.

The unity says Hi (telepathically of course).

Actually, the Advent can't develop Ice further, but the TEC and the Vasari can.

TEC can upgrade Ice, Desert, Terran

Advent can upgrade Desert, Terran

Vasari can upgrade Terran, Ice, Volcanic

A good SOASE expansion should only bring more tech, more ships/structures and new interface windows eventually ! Game is really perfect as it is, can't you see?

for new interface and new possibilities with it !!! Well, not totally new, but slightly revamped would be great !

Har har, such an easy jab to take. 

But this idea is fundamentally different.  This isn't pirates using individual ships worth a thousand.  This is the idea that the pirates have been bloated by incoming funds, seen their numbers swell, and have developed greater organization and access to materials.  At the highest threat level, and again because it bears repeating when it gets tossed aside without so much as a single glance that this would only take affect when the highest fleets deploy because the bounty amount is so damned high, the pirates have a fleet organizer ship of sorts.  Think of it as Cap'n Jackass' Dread Cruiser or something to that effect.  This would be something of a treat to see deployed into the field, and not an every round occurrence.  Yet again because it would only deploy when the games have evolved to late-late game AND AND AND the bounties are high enough.  Accompany it with a special message sent to the target when the ships initially phase in, so they know that good ole' Cap'n Jackass is headin' their way. 

How about Implementing a "Culture" bonus meter, that builds up and lets you trigger some sort of bonus abilities like Civilization's Golden Age mechanic?  Like once you have built up enough culture you could get a timed bonus to say metal, money, or crystal production and at really high levels maybe radically reduce the allegiance of an enemy planet or give yourself a 10% timed bonus to fleet wide  stats because they are "Inspired" to fight for their race like the "Finest Hour" ability or something. 

I think culture is an underused game mechanic that is begging to be tweaked and explored further.

Talking of Culture, I wished Advent were using it more ! I mean, they need more technologies to make their culture be faster / better / stronger !

So we would definitely have a more defensive style of play with advent, only attacking with culture while reinforcing their position and in the end attack.

Not that we should remove anything to them but since they're so based on culture, they should have more "attacks" based of the culture system.

Vasari should be more based of raw power and TEC with diplomacy maybe...