[boran_blok]

imho a stars! followup, or even a clone (there is an open source project in the make that is trying to acheive this) would remake the 4X space exploration thing to what it was. In many ways the Very, Very old stars! is superior over SEIV for me. mainly in management and feeling overall more real. it's interface is incredibbly old, but imhi its so much better to, with message filtering, and autoques for new colonies, etc, it has a lot of features i'd like to see in SEV. but one I know I will not see in SEV and that is one galaxy, without warppoints (okay maybe a black hole or two, but it'll never be a galaxy) warppoints make SE less "real" to me.

but stars is simply too old and had a terrible system in terms of politics and treaties (you could only set hostile, nonhostile, which is not much)

Anyways, if there is ever a game with the general feel and capabilities of stars!, the moddability of SE, and a good diplomacy system, then that would be the game for me.