I'm a new poster here, but have played both DL and DA. I had a recent thought about the maps and some features that might be interesting to implement.

One feature that would be interesting to put in place might be the concept of shipping lanes. The best reference for this could probably be seen in Star Wars Empire at War. While it is still possible to move from planet to planet directly, the fastest route is through a "hyperspace lane". I figured that later in the game players could research some other form of stellar cartography or navigation in order to be able to travel quickly anywhere they wanted. This could also change the tactical side of the game by effectively giving players choke points (specific planets) to hold in order to secrue an area. Like I said, attacking players could still go around these planets, but it would be much, much slower (or perhaps not at all until some tech is researched).

Another concept that also borrows from Empire at War (and also from the Yor's super ability) might be other large-scale space "anomalies" such as nebulae, quasars, black holes, etc... Players would have to steer clear of these or traverse them much more slowly (nebulae). Perhaps sensors would not work in their field of effect as well.

Comments?