[Stone Mill]

Lots of great ideas here. I hope these ideas are considered for SE5.

Another position that seems obvious to me is thus:

No Treaty: Ships/units may engage in space combat, but planets are not attacked.

War: Required for attacking planets.

This should be relatively easy to implement. I expect that some folks may argue otherwise, but in my opinion, exterminating planets is an act of WAR, plain and simple. If you wish to frag or invade a planet and capture/wipe out all life, you should have the cahonas to declare war in order to do it.

This change would create a logical level of combat (No-Treaty) for "actions short of war."