If you are asking for suggestions, I have one.

It would be nice to redo the planetary build screen to seperate the different types of buildings. For example: have a farms tab, a lab tab, a production tab, a morale tab, a trade good tab, and a super project tab. You could set it up like the Explorer in windows, by having them set up similar to how they are with the most advanced building available showing and a plus sign next to it if you want to expand it and pick a lower building (Because it would be faster to build.) It would be like this:

(-)Farming - Advanced Farming (BC 150)
Farming - Intensive Farming (BC 120)
Farming - Xeno Farming (BC 100)
Farming - Basic Farming (BC 50)
(+)Factory - Industrial Sector (BC 400)
(+)Laboratory - Neutrality Learning Center (BC 300)
(+)Morale - Multimedia Center (BC 100)
(+)Trade Good - Ultra Spices (BC 500)
(+)Super Project - Hyperion Shipyard (BC 1000)

If you want to build the most advanced building, you can do it the way it is currently done. If you want a less advanced building on the planet (such as Xeno Factory instead of Industrial Sector) then you hit the (+) sign and pick the option that you want under that section.

This way the screen would not be cluttered, but you would still have the flexibility to build what you want on the planets. (Especially important once you research Industrial Sector, since now you have to make sure that all of your planets are sufficiently productive before you can even consider researching that tech.)

I won't presume to know what is and isn't simple and easy to be done , so I'll just make my suggestion and let the powers that be decide. My issue is with the combat viewer. I find it a tad bit...repetitive...to have to fumble through moving the free camera around in order to re-align it to my preferred angle at every battle. This means I have to pause the replay and correct the viewpoint so that I'm not staring off into space (punny, haha).

If it could be made to stay put relative to the location of the battle, the camera would definately hear far less harsh language directed at it in the future...which I'm sure will only improve our relations.

I mentioned the following idea before in an independent post (with no comments), and after having played several additional games since that post, I still think it is a great idea that would save lots of time and keystrokes.

Summary: I would like to have an option to have a rally point created automatically on the square occupied by a starbase when that starbase is renamed. A checkbox in the starbase renaming screen that names the rally point the same as the starbase would be a perfect solution for me.

Here's my original post: Link

Thanks,
Uru

When there are ship combat scenes over a planet, I think the planet should look like a real planet with oceans and land visible, not some indiscernable mass of spinach green.
Also I think the rally system needs to be overhauled because it is very difficult to manage fleets on a large or huge map. When you click on a rally point on the rally point screen, the rally point should light up on the map to remind you where it is.
Also I think you should be able to dock ships on a starbase tile.

Otherwise, great game. I'll add more comments as I play it more.

Let us put in normal Builds AHEAD of Upgrades that are AUTOMATICALLY built. I am really tired of having 3 years of UNINTERRUPTABLE UPGRADES that I must sit thru before I can do a CRITICAL new build.

This can already be done by selecting the build you want and re-prioritizing it with the arrow keys above the build queue.

24 (**) Here is an easy one that I think people would love: IF your espionage level is high enough then during the Galactic council meeting that races vote is displayed BEFORE you vote.

I know you're working on espionage for the next one. Hope you do this because it's almost as easy as an IF-THEN statement and it would be so cool without really unbalancing anything (U.P. is just for fun anyway).

More original names for weapons and shields would be an excellent idea in my opinion. Laser could be called Deathray and Laser 2 could be Doomstream. Or any name other than what the weapon actually is.

Here's one that could be "put in and tested in less than an hour" -- don't display ships that are all jewelry anywhere but the shipyard. You never want to build a ship with no functional components, they are only for upgrading. So leave the templates out of the build list.

Make construction modules heavier (say, 50) and let us put as many as we want on a ship.

Edit: The idea is that you could only put one on a Cargo but you could make better ones with big ships in the later parts of the game.