Alas, no more DLC/expansions are planned. We're out of memory space to work in.

No word on any code changes right now. Ironclad is working very hard to get Sins of a Dark Age released at the moment. 

NO, please don't do that, basically that's the only way to know who owns the planet. If the game reaches mid-game status, there is microscopically small chance for you to reveal what's going on on those enemy worlds that you don't even know who controls. This colored circle is the only way to know which AI is the stronger one and where to find their planets. Your scouts cannot pass the hangars, starbases, phase jump inhibitors, and AI's surely like to build these in bigger numbers everywhere on the map. Scouting late game is already extremely hard if you play against AI, it would make things much worse.

Well, my games vs. the AI hardly ever last that long, but if what you say is true, the fix for the late game scouting difficulty is surely not keeping two early game bugs that render scouting less necessary by leaking ownership info. For the late game problem you identified, some late-game scouting techs could probably be added (besides the early/mid-game scout buffing research), although as someone suggested in that thread, the temp. invulnerability of envoys is a workaround for difficulties with scouting with actual scouts. (And you can better afford envoys later in the game.)

If the devs really intended for any player to know when any other player [not just an ally] colonized a planet or took a resource extractor (regardless of scouting), they could have added an audible event/message for that. Perhaps adding a game option to remove the fog of war completely (like the replays have) might appease those players who are bothered by the late game scouting problem. Removing the fog of war is an option in some RTS and even in some more pretentious combat sim games (Combat Mission comes to mind.)

In singleplayer you have plenty of time to issue unlimited APS. You can pause and issue orders in this game like most RTS. I probably wouldn't be playing it if I couldn't do this, managing large scale games efficiently would require too much technical skill. I'm more interested in the decision-making aspect of gameplay.

Hmm, I don't seem to have much issue scouting the AI.  A fair sized group of scouts (half dozen or little more) or even Corvettes should be able to slip through most planetary defenses.  Now, if the AI has its fleet in the way... you're right, that's a different story.  For that, I find sending a small fleet contingent made up of things I don't mind losing is great for this.  Preferably, seems I should already know where in the grav well the enemy fleet is due to lost scouts, I would jump the smaller fleet in on the opposite side, then give them some running orders.  Once the enemy fleet has taken the bait, jump my scouts through.

Apologies... I should've known better than to post my response in this thread as it would derail it.

Turchany, check the other thread for my response.

TBH I agree with you, this colored circle thing is not even near top priority as only a few people noticed it, few people want to change it even if it has no real game changing value, and would make life a bit harder for some players who know this exists and are actively using it to track the expansion of the AI.

Vasari AI is likely not programmed to build starbases any more frequently than the other races, despite Vasari SBs being far more integral to their strategy in MP than SBs are to the other two races.

That said I've had no issues with Vasari AI allies. I've never had one wiped out before I have built up enough to start conquering the enemies nearest to me, and several times they've had their enemies already on the ropes by the time I get any forces over to them.

Q: Do you leave what type they are as random? ie, Aggressive, Researcher, Fortifier, etc?

Yes, there are some that are better at it than others.  Check out the Artificial Unintelligence Mod thread in the modding section.  The guy who did that also gave a very detailed break down of all his AI tweak findings, including how good (or bad) some of those settings are in various situations (including which race they are).

Yarlen,

Elsewhere there was pointed out a bug with the Maw in that it was attracting frigates in but only actually devouring some of them, resulting in the extras being "spit" out the back of the VL Titan.  I don't know if it was intended (it seems to me like it shouldn't be?), but I see where in the code as to why it happens.

Pastebin link: BuffTheMawSelf.entity

For the instantAction that applies the buff BuffTheMawConvertTarget, it has a max target count of 15/30.  The next instantAction that applies BuffTheMawAttractTarget, has a max target count of -1/-1.  This is what causes that behavior.

An additional thing that might be worth looking at... both of them also have different values for their coneAngle (meaning frigates can be hit with the "convert" buff that are not being hit with the "attract" buff).

Yeah, I know they limited how much it chews.  But they didn't limit how much it pulls, resulting in what others have reported in that it spits the ships out "whole" through its rear.  Further, the cone of angle for the "chew" is actually wider than that of the pull....

Re-studying the files, though, it looks like it'll take more than a simple text change to fix it.  First, the convert buff is applied once.  This means new ships that enter the area affected will be pulled, but not chewed, even if it didn't hit its max, yet.

Second, aside from one time shots (instantAction), there is no way for it to track cumulative targets affected.  IE, if on first application there were only 5 targets, but on another application there's another 5 targets, it'll still see it as 5 targets, not 10 total.

Maw will require code changes to fix.