How come these guys can release patches to adulation, but everyone else is "milking it" or "fixing things that should have been fixed long ago" when they release patches?
The ability to set a given planet as a technology, research, ship building or balanced planet, . NOT like the overall focus. It would literally add a 9% boost to a given type (or 3%, 3%, 3%).
Color coded the hammers/etc. based on whether they are bonus or not. Then on mouse over, which by then should be very nice, we can display where these numbers come from.
On game setup, have an option to simply set up how many players you want to play against and have it randomly pick who you’re playing with.
On game setup, have a checkbox that says "Randomize intelligence". The result would be that the game difficulty would be used to distribute the intelligence points. Example: I could select "Tough" and then have this checkbox selected and it would look at the # of players and the total number of intelligent points it takes to have tough and then distribute it out so that some are smarter than others (up to a 30% difference between intelligences).
Lots of tweaks to the context window UIs which we’ll be discussing how best to do it.
Fleet Manager screen.
An option to show auto pilot ships destinations on map with a very very faint line (dotted preferably if possible) where they are going. Ala the trade routes.
When selecting a constructor, have a very very faint circle that shows the area of effect a starbase would have.
MAJORLY updated AI (not to make it tougher, to make it smarter at higher levels and dumber -- i.e. poor strategies -- at lower levels)
Additional ship extras for more ship options
Bug fixes of various kinds
Approval Rating > 75% gives you a 5% boost to production. Approval rating < 40% has a -5% affect on production. Players won't be charged for this bonus production.
Ability to rotate ship components in the Ship Designer
Dynamic logo components - brand your ships with your insignia
Enhanced context menus for managing stacked ships and fleets
Starbase modules pruned/tweaked
Unused Social Spending routed to military spending (or back to treasury if nothing is being used)
New ship components
UI for selecting MODS/Total Conversions
Updated Scoring System
No Tech Trading option
New maps and scenarios
Various tweaks to economics, costs, etc.
There is not one bug fix in that entire list, except of course the one that says various bug fixes. That entire list is additions to the game people have been asking for in the forums. Your question does have merit though, I for one am usually very vocal about buggy releases. I seem to have unusal patience with this game though. Probably Stardocks whole attitude towards their customers leave me with the feeling that they will not just drop support for this game so they can crank out a new one.