[dogscoff]

would like to see seperate Componets that can generate research or intell points.

Yeah, we've been asking for this forever, but I guess Aaron just doesn't like the idea.

As for the crew thing... I'd love to have a really involved crew management system. Each ship would require a certain number of crew to operate, according to size, and how many weapons, engines and so on it has.

Different amounts of crew would affect the ship's performance, kind of an extension to the current "destroy crew quarters and lose half your movement" situation. Crew members could be killed in combat, boarding attempts and random events, and so it would be important to carry some "spares". Of course you'd need extra crew quarters to house them.

Anyway crews would have to be recruited from planets (maybe even tracking their racial abilities=-) and could be transferred from ship to ship. That way you could rescue a crew from a crippled ship by sending out another ship with extra crew quarter space or some free cargo space. It would make boarding parties and allegiance subverters far more interesting as well=-) Throw in morale tracking as well and you'd have a brilliant system. Micromanagemnt hell, but a brilliant sytstem.

More ideas:
How about an option to NOT display unexplored systems of the galaxy map? It kind of narks me that you can see the general "shape" of the galaxy and can guess where some warp points are going to and from before you have explored the whole map.

Oh, and how about if ships that had been taken over with the Allegiance Subverter had a chance to overcome their psychic programming and convert back for a few (strategic or tactical) turns?