there should be boarding parties or space marines and such...
like get in, sabotage, get out

and maybe even stealth the super small ships, like mini frigates that can only have sensors but no weapons what so ever

I would definitely like planets orbiting the star in ALL directions--not just a 2 dimensional plane.

A story mode
More Capital Ships
Possibly planets revolving around a star
More Research
More structures
More artifacts, and planet types
Another Faction

but, there's not much to add to a great game to make it greater, only a whole new great game   

1. Starbases. To build and fortify neutral sectors.


2. Diplomatic relations with militia's/minor races, who have bonuses you could acquire when you either conquer them or bring them into the fold diplomatically.

3. Random events, like spacial anomalies that move through space, i.e. nebulae and moving plasma storms, or asteroid fields or comets which can pose a threat to ships and colonies. Marauding pirate fleets with capital ships, perhaps mobile pirate bases. Some kind of sinister life form which travels around and eats undefended colonies. Stars going supernova and blowing up their system. Comets hitting planets and devastating the population.

4. Heavy duty orbital defences for colonies.

5. Moons, binary planets.

6. Superweapons which can actually destroy planets, aka the Death Star.

7. Super capital class ships.

8. Ramming suicide tactics, and/or self destructs.

DEFINITE WISHES
-More Planet types
-1-2 New Capital Ships for each Race
-More visible weapon effects
-New ships and abilities for existing ships
-New research options
-Research for colonizing gas planets
-More upgrades for Planets

MAYBE
-The latest trend in RTS expansions these days is to tack on a new playable faction with each expansion. This is great if the faction fits perfectly, but often the added factions feel uninspired and redundant. If the devs can think of a fourth empire that matches the original three in concept and originality, then I would be delighted to see such an addition. Maybe add another Alien/terran race that favors Gas planets? They could wear gas masks like the Brotherhood of Steel in Fallout or something...

And Mercenary units you can hire..

It sounds like there making an expansion to me. Look at the news 1.1 is coming out after four. Besides this game is so freakin awesome IT DESERVES an expansion.

Yeah sure, it deserves an expansion... but maybe in a year/two years maybe mate, If they brought out an expansion and it made the game so much better that you pretty much needed it, my mates and I would move back to COD4... We don't have much cash, so asking for more money when the game only just bloody came out is a little greedy, and im sorry to say but you guys are morons for trying to turn this company into a money hungry arrogant sonofabitch if you think that an expansion 2 months after release is a good thing.. god damnit. I want to punch you right in the face.

keep putting out patches, adding more units with them, I remember the awesome days of Desert Combat, where new units would just arrive and everyone would be so damn excited to use them. Stop encouraging Stardock to be douche's.

1.1.. means there bringing out an expansion... umm... no it means there bringing out a major patch called 1.1...

Read reply #80, on this page :

Diplomatic expansion

"To me reading the race's lore it seems that the Vasari and the Advent both seem to come from the Dune books. By this I mean they both kinda borrow bits from the Honored Matre's history if you consider Brian Herbert's and Kevin Anderson's work cannon. To this end I believe and want at least 1 more if not 2 more races or "sentinent beings" in an expansion pack. I also ( if not fixed in a patch) would like a fleshed out campaign mode and would like all races to start at Neutrality towards each other. I could understand if the Vasari were hostile to all and the Advent were hostile towards TEC giving their respective backgrounds. "

I thought so too! Go Dune!!!  
1.colinizeable moons with weapons, labs, hangars, factories
2.Super Capital ships
Advent: Big battleship with amazing psi abilities (Imagine repulsion 10000x on a single target!   ) and a large hanger
Vasari: Mobile phase gates, mass cloaker, and lots of nanobots
TEC: Flying factory/ extractor thing with lots of missles and gauss cannons   

Fixs all the "filler" techs in the tech tree for all three sides.

There are already a good number of ships, so give each ship, a new special abilitie

Add ground battles (see post done by Williamnight)

Make building fleets more important, like the abilitie to adding admirals, like they did in conquest frontier wars.

Make it so that all the X4 elements, are still tied to get her, but improve the power of tech, culture, and econ.

The tech super X4 element could be for replacing RA for the Vasari with the New Dark fleet. Where instead of free ships, there entire fleet, gets bounes, based on which admirals they have on there board. Max of 16 out of 256 adirmals, to chose from.

For econ, the hire Mercenary units sounds great, for just allow us to beeter effect the Pirates.

For culture, give it an offenive edge.

More ships types could also be added. Examples, even larger capitals (like titans etc), more frigate types and cruisers, add battleships (between cruisers and capitals). Customize ships, e.g. research base chassis then weapons, increase armour and shields, size, abilities. Another cool idea is better "superweapons" rather than just a massive gun., like a unique experimental ship? or even larger ships than a titan like a death star . Also another faction, more research options, more planet types, more artifacts, a campaign (like a massive universe starting in history in like earth [or whatever home planet you have] and then expanding slowly having 'mission' type things going to other solar systems, then other galaxies [hell lets add another universe while were at it just to get an awe like in spore]), if no more factions then subfactions with unique ships, ship paint jobs , as mentioned earlier multiple galaxies and universes. OH space stations in the middle of no where between galaxies and solar systems to act as super top secret facilities,...

Though i admit it is a good game it does get same-ie and there are plenty of stuff that can be done to keep my attention to the game. Yes im a dreamer lol

1) Variety of weapon fire arc's
2) Animated turret(s) on atleast 1 ship (one is enough so no one bitches about performace)
3) 'Move & Fire' command for ships that you want to move during combat
4) Fleet formations
5) Proper single player campaign with some gameplay of features that you wouldn't get in AI skirmish or multiplayer games.
6) More detail/flair points on capitalships
7) More use of the Z axis e.g. if you phase jump from high up in the gravity well you enter the new system high up in the gravity well.
8) Planetary structure or defenses built on the planet itself.