Well, when the forums screwed up yesterday I was about to post an idea for the modders to include in their final stuff for the new CD!
For those of you who are making modded data files and not just adding races how about making star systems that are nebula but DO have planets. They should have a large combat sensor deficit and heavy shield penalties, just don't use the 'sight obscuration' ability since that would make the planets unfindable. I guess the technobabble would be that these areas are less dense nebula than the sight-obscuring ones. (Psst, remove the small storms from these systems. A small storm floating in a nebula system looks silly!
)
These nebula "border" systems might be an excellent 'terrain' feature to add variety to the game, and could be an ideal place for the missile using races to dominate. Someone might even make a map with carefully balanced 'regions' of each type of system rather than just random distribution. Having regions in every game that require 'grit tech' tactics sounds exciting to me. There is of course the same old problem with the adaptability of the AI. Each AI will continue to use its standard programmed tactics in either sort of system.
But hey, this could still be great fun for multi-player human games.
Important idea for modders
Threaded Mode