The ship designer has been my favorite part of the Gal Civ series and what initially got me to purchase the game.  I have spent the majority of my hours in Gal Civ designing ships for use in game and 3D printing.

My favorite thing about the game is the storytelling.  Taking control of a civilization and taking them through their wins/losses and steps from a minor power in the galaxy to an empire.  Most of my storytelling comes from the creation and update of classes of ships, as well as battles won and lost.

I have two suggestions for things future expansions that I would like to see.

1.  I know a lot is being done on this, but I really hope to see the combat system shine. It takes a lot of effort to make a good combat system and it's one of the last things I think the GC series needs. In my experience good combat systems have:

- Balance, there can be strong and weak strategies, but there needs to be at least 3 winning strategies that are comparable in strength and each of those should have their own pros and cons. Generally players will attempt to optimize combat strategy. If there is only one or two strategies that work, combat will almost always devolve into 1 of 3 outcomes stat1 vs strat2, strat1 vs strat1, or strat2 vs strat2.  With 3 winning strategies there are now 6 normal outcomes, and with 4 there are 10 normal outcomes.

- Diverse roles and responsibilities. Each ship class should have a strength and weakness so players can't build ships that are all the same type and expect to win.

- A few small scale skirmishes, with a few large scale battles that cause losses on both sides. A major problem I see in a lot of games is the A.I.s ability to rebuild and regroup  at extremely fast rates. This often can cause players to avoid losses at all costs because a loss for the player is not equal to a loss for an A.I. with bonuses to military production. Losses can be just as fun as the wins in my opinion as long as they were close and there is a chance to come back from them. If the A.I. has to take time to rebuild before coming after a player again, it can make the player more comfortable with the idea of taking losses and making sacrifices in order to achieve their goals. Maybe I have to sacrifice my old but well stocked fleet in order to try and give me time to prepare and finish equipping a new shiny fleet that is my hope for winning the war.  To this end, I've really enjoyed the proliferation civ perk that outputs 2 weaker ships for every one ship that would be built. I took many losses than normal, but they were acceptable because I could rebuild and rearm at a rate that allowed me to compete with the A.I. Basically I want to see more uncertain outcomes.

2. More ship parts and civs are always appreciated. Ships with sloping tank like armor and ships that take ques from mech designs like armored core are at the top of my list.

Well, I think some quality of life stuff needs to be added.

For a long time, since galciv 3 beta, this game does not have a good way to select multiple ships at once. No drag select, no shift select.

Likewise, you can't import ship designs mid game. For example, a friend sent you a saved game that they want to see if you can beat. Loading the game, you would not have any of your ship designs or templates as there is no way to load them.

Please add race ship parts from Star Control Origins to the ship designer?

I had one more suggestion for a possible future expansion.

Gal Civ 4 is a great storytelling engine. The leaders were a great addition and they help flesh out the world in use as governors, diplomats, ministers, and ship commanders. 

Command ships are a fun addition to Gal Civ, and I think they should stay, but to me they are somewhat limiting. Basically it boils down to if one gets destroyed, it's gone so I am more protective of these ships, and they don't necessarily feel like a ship I built to be in charge of a fleet.  They all have different roles and play styles which is great, but they don't function like the captain ships in GC3 which I made extensive use of.  Basically I think something like being able to assign a captain to a player built ship would be a fun addition to GC4.

One way to go about this would be to have a couple of roles leaders could be assigned to.  These roles could then be assigned to a ship that is already built. When a ship with an assigned role is destroyed, the leader is killed as well and the player must wait X turns before it can be reassigned. Leader roles could be:

- Squadron Leader: Can only be assigned to smaller class ships, and gives a buff to smaller class ships like fighters based on the leaders traits.

- Captain: Can only be assigned to larger class ships and gives that specific ship a large bonus to survivability and weapon power based on the leaders traits.

- Admiral: Can only be assigned to the largest class ships available.  Give a fleetwide bonus to ship moves, defenses, and weapon strength based on the leaders traits. 

- Explorer: Can only be assigned to surveyor ships. Gives a bonus to ship movement, and radar based on the leaders traits.

There is a lot of design space here and I think it could be used to give a real boost the to explore and exterminate aspects of the game.

It also creates an opening for what I am actually asking for, A.I. nemesis's.  If a system like this were in place, I really want the A.I. to take full advantage of it. 

In storytelling, the villain is just as, if not more important the hero. They are the backdrop providing the challenges that produce the tension for the story. Currently enemy Civs represent this backdrop and they work well in that role, but there could be some incredible additions to that roster. Namely in the form of these leader roles.

I would set it up so the A.I. would actively use these roles assigning leaders to ships and would actively seek to maintain fleets around these ships so that they present the biggest challenge that civ has to offer.  In addition you could randomly generate a name for said ship and fleet that it is assigned to.  If this were included players are no longer just fighting a random enemy civ fleet XVI.

Instead they are hunting the battleship Enslaver of the Black Eclipse fleet commanded by the Dregin Drathnik who has laid waste to several of the outer colonies of the Terran Alliance. These leaders could even send taunts to the player when they destroy a fleet, or capture a core world.

We have seen systems like this drastically improve other games like the nemesis system from Shadow of Mordor. Part of the reason that game was so engaging was in large part because when an orc killed you he was promoted and now became an enemy you wanted to destroy. That system is heavily patented and protected so you couldn't copy what they did, but something as simple as what I described above would provide some intense engagements and open up more storytelling options as well as provide the player with more tangible enemies that they could find and eliminate.

A steam release....

Have you tried turning down the Nebula Opacity setting?