1. (NEW SHIPS FOR ONE OF THE FACTIONS)add unique ship types so the factions will not look totally the same, one of the 2 factions could inherit the original ones, maybe the loyalist ones, and rebels shoudl get new ship types not to look totally the same. Though I am aware of the 2GB RAM limit stuff or something and know that this cannot be done, so ignore it.

2. INCREASING RACIAL AND FACTIONAL DIFFERENCEs making races and factions more different from each other. This cannot be a problem, and will not make the game more energy consuming I guess, and the factions really need more specific stuff, not just a few that are actually used in games. I ignore those techs that are not doing anything useful like the Tec Rebel thing liberation at level8, we need more that are actually changing the gameplay of the faction. Maybe changing base hull-shield-armor ratios by a small amount would be awesome too. Maybe make Advent more crystal dependent but give them better crystal extraction rates, and a small bonus at the beginning (like in the E4X mod), or just make their crystal-increase techs easy to get, not 3-4-6, instead 1-2-4 or something.

3. DIPLOMACY (would be the best theme for the DLC). Total remake is needed, the way it is now, it is less useful than it should be (for me it seems totally useless), and factions (loyalist VS rebel) make allying even harder, and the whole diplomacy tech tree is too expensive and it takes too much time to get the pacts that will not really help you at all if you get them, because you need mutual relations that is a really bad idea. Good luck finding an AI that will actually send ships at your way, or a human ally, who is most of the times at war (latter is about online games) and will not have money for envoys, the whole thing is broken, so a nice expansion improving it would be the best I think, giving another layer of fun for the game (economy+military+diplomacy, but nowadays diplomacy is only found in noob ffa games I don't like playing, or AI ffa that is even worse). And mutual relations, wtf, I made him like me absolutely, but I don't like him enough because he has no envoys my planets so I can't offer him pacts, though I want to. It is a crap thing because I do want to give him that pact, though I can't because I dont like him enough, so, what?. .... paradox

4. REALISTIC MAPS (or just actually fun premade maps, not small like hell maps) maybe the map layout should be improved to be more realistic, I don't really like those solar systems that have 30 planets in them (or even more) (nowhere close to reality). In reality at best ~10-12 planet is the max for one system, not counting moons. In this game stars have a strange role, for me ruining the games where there are multiple systems because of the game structure, not really good to jump from star to star (like you reach the neighbouring star first, and not the outer Oort cloud or something..), so more realistic maps would be good, and premade maps that are actually fun, not those tight maps that will only let you get 2-4 planets before running out of neutral worlds and immediate conflict and etc. It woud be nice to have more maps that actually let you expand without running into the AI within 5 minutes of the game. Other maps beside the random ones are not much playable for me, I don't really like immediate conflict and I prefer to be at peace for like 5-10 minutes and just expanding.

Look at Endless Space, the galaxy view shows stars, and you can move between stars, and star systems have reasonable number of planets (1-6), and you have to click on the star to access planets and colonize, upgrade etc them. You owb the star system, attack star systems at a whole, in SoaSE the focus is totally on planets, totally ignoring star systems.

I have no idea how to make it better though, just it would be nice to see Sins be a bit more realistic in this field.

I guess we would need a new game to implement better and more realistic maps, though I think something could be done to make it better even in a small DLC. Maybe make random maps have some rules, so volcans will be near the star, ice will be further, making moon-like objects so dead ends from a gas giant or something. But I don't think devs want to deal with improving this.

What about actual fix to maw?

Research for the late game. After about 3 hours playing most if not all research is done. Games against AI on large maps can last a lot longer than that... unfortunately there's not much evolution anymore, you're stuck with the exact same units you've got and nothing changes. Also it doesn't really matter if you have the largest economy since you have nothing you can spend all your credits on ... all research is done and ships are as "cheap" as ever. So I would like more research. And I'm not thinking about eco-research ... you don't need that anymore, I'm thinking about weapons upgrades.

Make the late-game upgrades costly ; that will benefit the largest empires, meaning that if you have got a large portion of the map, then you can also create a more powerful fleet. For example I wouldn't mind if a late-game weapon upgrade of 5% costs 50K 1st time to research, 75K 2nd time, 100K third time, etcetera.

To offset this a little, I'd think more advanced ships should also be more costly to produce (again, this will benefit the largest empires). For example ships might become 10% more expensive with every high-level upgrade of 5%.

I don't like the idea of ridiculously priced research just for the sake of spending money. If you need to spend for the sake of lowering what you have then just constantly buy and sell crystal and metal. You'll eventually run out of resources. I personally see nothing wrong with having surplus funds. It means that if something goes wrong I can rebuild quickly.

Must be the times, these days people expect governments to spend ludicrous amounts of money on nearly irrelevant projects *cough, any Western government, cough, especially the US military projects of the past 25 years, cough* 

1. More small strategic targets.  We know neutral asteroids as high, low investment sources of income.  The importance of neutrals has been reduced because now the early game economies are stronger post dlc.  The fun aspect of play involving micromanagement of neutrals has also been reduced because the strategic use of neutrals has diminished(note: I know neutrals are important, just not as much so).  Yes, i've played with skilled players and the impact neutrals have on these new economies are noticeably reduced, along with the need to fight for said neutrals.

So, I propose adding something new.  New art assets are not needed.  Just add different types of neutrals to the map that can provide certain unique military opportunities for players who maintain control of them.  

Some possible examples:

-Neutrals could grant players new technologies off of other racial tech trees for as long as the players hold them(tec/advent/vasari ship crash or something).  Also, these technologies could be an entirely new tech tree that any race could have access to, this just depends on what the developers could realistically implement within their constraints.  Since the game's technology tree is a static mechanic, with the increased early game economy the original intent of the technology tree has become slightly marginalized, impacting the game experience.  Any future additions to the game economy will throw this out of balance even more, so developers need to tread carefully when making any pure power economic decisions.    

-Neutrals could give players a unique neutral only resource that may or may not even be on the map every game.  This would increase replayability and give players a new resource to manage.  This resource could be used to provide additional upgrades to certain ships, like a per ship cost of the special resource to give it a significant % boost to all stats or something.   

-Special planetary neutrals that can be colonized by other players, even if the gravity well is owned by you (1 per planet).  This would allow players to have a reason to harass certain enemy locations regularly, if the neutral is good enough to warrant the expenditure of resources.  I think that temporary technology would be an excellent military incentive for such an action.  In practice you would attack an enemy planet away from the front lines to get the temporary buff, then your main fleet would go into action with a new buff.

What are your thoughts?

Also, another DLC idea:

Fix pirates so that TEC reb's can come back.  Also, have each faction have a different game mechanic with the pirates.

@ warloklord

Nice list of ideas!

1.Sector events: Good idea!  Mixing up tactical situations during the game is going to be fun, space weather ftw!

2.New titans: Sure, i'd like more to add adaptation to the strategic environment of the endgame, yet I feel that this would probably take them a lot of time to implement and is therefore unlikely in a DLC.  Another expansion maybe .

3.New artifacts: Why not?

4.Race specific artifacts: It could be marginally useful, but it wouldn't have an impact on all games and therefore people might consider the DLC to not be worth their $$.

5.More planet types: Careful with this one, adding more isn't always better, the game becomes harder to balance and after a certain point it can overwhelm a newer player by presenting them with too many options and having to memorize each new planet type's strengths/weaknesses.  Also, needing to remember all the planets for a long time player could become an annoying chore.  I feel it's too early to tell if the game needs even more planet types.

6. New fighter/bomber designs:  YES! great idea, I really enjoyed mods that had this, and the impacts on the game were significant.  I especially enjoyed one mod where they had electronic warfare fighters.

7. AI fleet behavior: not really a DLC idea, more of a patch fix.  

8. New Super Weapons:  Sure, it would mix up the endgame and give more options.  Harder to balance though.

9 .and 10. Pirate DLC: Yes I agree with you here.  Pirates as an AI faction have been discussed at great length in many older posts.

Well warlok, they are discussing it so this thread could have an impact on their discussions.  We will see

I like [10], the migrating pirates.

I've also got a few new ideas.

- Perhaps add elite commanders for your capital ships. Perhaps make them trainable, for they would die if the capital ships are destroyed. Such commanders could also have an AOE to ships in the neighbourhood of the capital ship.

- Perhaps add a certain type of disaster, but with a twist. For example, a plague that spreads slowly between your planets and is carried by ships that travel through their gravity wells ... then you can also send infected ships to enemy planets. Also, add special disaster research to find an antidote to the disease... and when you've found the antidote, you'll receive a modest bonus. For example a +5% population increase on all your planets.

Or maybe a disaster like ... well... a really, really big revolt that spreads over your planets, reducing tax income and reducing allegiance. If you do nothing, it'll spread and you'll lose. But if you manage to suppress the revolt, then you get bonus allegiance on all your planets. Perhaps by doing some diplomatic research and sending lots of envoys around your empire...

Or maybe ... hey ... how about a copyright violation that wreaks havoc on your trade income, because cheap fakes are spread everywhere like wildfire and replace the more lucrative "real" goods in your empire. Perhaps, after you've done some research to eliminate the cheap fakes, you'll get a small boost in your trade income. And... well... you could probably also export such problems to your neighbours somehow 

Or perhaps a research-disaster... new research has revealed a fatal flaw in your hull designs which can be exploited by enemies. This information has already been leaked resulting in an effective reduction of your hull by 10%. You've to do a lot of costly research to find a fix for this flaw and that's not easy... you might have to research different levels to reduce the damage done little by little... -9% ... -8% ... -7%... but hey! Your researchers gained new insights and now you can also research something extra ... +1% (maybe that's enough).

Well anyway, something like that might be fun (or not, dunno).

- I would also like to see something like Babylon 5. A giant space station, bristling with weapons. It's increadibly expensive and you can build only 1 of it. You can only build it around a gas giant.

I personally don't think those would be good in this game, those events fit turn based strategy games better than rts IMO.

Matchmaking and Ranking (MMR DLC) for PvP and PvAI

Honestly for me, the game only starts to be fun when it really start to slow down. Trying having 10 fleets free for all. The fun is watching all of the ships blowing up. Once the game starts to be really optimzied is when the ideas can really start to flow in.

As for my suggestion:

1. Planet types (sure the moon planets are nice)
2. More planetary anomalies (Disable shields, sectors that disable research bonuses, etc)
3. Ability builds, (a way to customize the abilities your ships get, perhaps with this more abilities than the number of ships can be allowed)

This has been said often before I know, but bears repeating - being able to select individual leader/diplomat profile pics for each faction. Having to choose them by the set is just... unnecessary. Very minor, yet desirable.

Different voice sets for the factions as well; maybe in-game being able to assign a captain voice to each capitol ship would be great. Some voicings for the Vasari are kind of annoying.

New Capitol Ships - Allow a player to select (in-game) which available Cap. Ships will comprise his roster for the rest of the game. Not all ship designs are equal, and it would be nice to customize at least aesthetically the makeup of your fleet.

i think the game needs more corvettes. When they announced Rebellion and they said there was going to be a new ship class, i was so excited. But then i found out there as just one per faction it was.... underwhelming. So we need more corvettes!!!!