I have already posted some of these on the forums in the past, but they should also be here on the official suggestions thread i think:

- Why is the limit for ship name lenght so strict? I cant even name my ship TDN Prometheus or TDN Enterprise without cutting off last letters. And I can only dream of TDN Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli (destructive god of the morning star, dawn, and of the east - Aztec mythology). At least increase it to something more reasonable...

- Temporary cloaking for ships and anticloak technology (tiberian sun anyone?)

- Could you add a button to divide fleet in two fleets with equal numbers of ships of every type? Dividing fleets for example into one attacking and one defending fleet is generally pain in the ass. I think this could be automatically done with some clever algorithm. Also, I would like to see something like fleet manager in Galactic Civilisations.

- a Bug: I have noticed that strikecraft can fly straight through a star or planet

- I would really like the idea of being able to fleet down. If u loose a few planets and resources you can drop as many tech levels in fleet support as you want at any time for some payment if you really need econ back... BUT to fleet back up you have to research all over again investing the resources (and time!) necessary to do so.   *Sorry Sarudak for stealing your post, but it was easier than typing it all over again.. hope u dont mind...*

- planetary invasions (they will take longer and cost some resources, but developed planets wont be absolutely destroyed after invasion, and maybe u could get slaves?)

- At least minimal amount of flak for capital ships and starbases (dont be afraid, it will be cool, and if u want to defend against larger amount of SC, u will still have to have a lot flak frigates)

- add planetary defenses located on planet surface(ground to orbit missiles, lasers....)

-asteroid fields IN systems that have some tactical effects(only fighters/bombers and frigates can navigate them, caps and cruisers cannot)
-Diffrent gas clouds alot like armarda
some that drop shields.. some that increase shield regen or interfere with diffrent kinds of weapons.

-minor races like in GalCiv 2

-space creatures(giant amoeba)
 -destroyable ship subsystems(weapons, engines, sensors...)

-trading planets, ships, technologies and negotiating options
like in GalCiv 2
-capturable key resources like in GalCiv 2
-capturing ships and stations
-more planetary slots and more powerful broadcast centers
-interstellar phase lanes(not all systems autoconnected)
-beig able to turn off long range jumps technology so u
can make systems connected only through wormholes, not star and have to fight your
way through (like jump nodes in FreeSpace)
-binary star systems, blackholes...

most of these suggestions arent diplomacy related, so i will understand if they wont be included in the upcoming expansion. But then dont be surprised when i will post them here again when next expansion suggestions thread will be online, so they dont get forgotten.. (just copy-paste again)

I was thinking again, and I came up with this:

A new logistic structure. Possibly called a Tourism Port or something, I could see this taking advantage of some of the planet's unique resources. This structure would send out cruise liners and civilian ships that would head to planets with unique resources, like the Glaciers and such, and would generate more revenue. To make this function diplomatic, an added feature would be that you would lose reputation if you attacked the civilian ships sent out by the Tourism Ports. Sort of a taboo against attacking noncombatants.

Good ideas.  I'd also like options to feed more than 250 at a time.  (How about an option to feed 1000 credits instead?)  Also, please fix the problem of different planets sometimes being right on top of one another or overlapping one another; it's very annoying.

a few good points, I'll go through some:

shipnames - agree

cloaking - interesting.

fleet split - well, theoretically interesting, but how pracital is it? first, you'd not always want half of your fleet stay back, but maybe only a third or less. and secondly, if it does an even, by-the-maths split, you'd maybe end up with ships useless in defense like structure busters or sieges (provided you ever built those). plus, how about capships? in some cases, the fleet is strong because of capship synergies. separating them due to an automated algorithm could be bad. again, basically an interesting idea, but I'd see too many problems in practice.

fleet research downsizing - meh, I don't have a problem with this. it should though only be changed at a cast, so no system like in warcraft III

planetary invasions - agreed. longer, riskier and costlier, but higher rewards aka already developed planet.

cap and sb flak - well, maybe. like two of flak frig banks and twice or three times as much for the sb itself. wouldn't make much of a difference, but it would be nice just for the sake of it.

surface to orbit defenses - well, how would those work? that would mean basically only capships and siege ships can attack and destroy those. that would either make them totally uber or - because they cannot really be destroyed easily - their dmg would be so low as to make them irrelevant. if someone comes up with an idea that works well gameplay wise, I'm all into it, but right now I'm sceptical

effects inside (planet) grav wells - agreed. maybe even made the suggestion myself at some point. some combination of those neutrals' effects with planet would make it a lot more interesting. how about a planet hidden in nebula ( new  caprica anyone?) or with an asteroid field nearby. it's probably rather difficult with the engine, but definately something I'd like to see. good way to make some planets extra special.

minor races - definately agreed

space creatures - agreed

destroyable subsystems - nice idea,  but impractical with the scale of battles

key resources - interesting, would require several changes, but sounds good.

freespace style interstellar play - let's leave that to modders and map builders. there are one or two maps that are sort of like that. many, small starsystesms, only connected via wormholes

also, a small idea from my side: I think pirates should less of a countdown machine, but show a little more initiative outside those things. you know, small groups of pirates could wander around or lurk, waiting for trade ships to ambush and the like. heh, could make capturing neutrals a bit harder, if you run into pirates every once in a while. actually, maybe the pirates would even have a ship that conquers them back. so you'd not only have to contest with other players, but pirates for those valuable neutral roids.

ya some kinda of fleet management screen would be REALLY REALLY great.  it would help us gather a fleet at a rally point and then redividing it into strike groups quickly.  the screen would have access to the fleet controls (create, leave, formation, attack orders) and access to the rename feature.

a comment of some of the trade stuff from before...

i really dont want to micro building trade ships, but being able choose between auto/manual trade route might be nice.  and having a convory group that you can add warships to for defense would be cool.  then, i could have an established primary trade route in the rear of my empire and assign a couple of light carriers to it as a guard.

Sure ship names would be nice, but what you mod to have thousands of ships? are you going to spend hours programming in the names sure, you could seperate autoship names by class (as done in Aramada II) but seriously, the String files would probabaly reach 100mb, and it probably won't be even filled with all the names you wanted.

As for cloaking, the ability to cloak is already done, but to be fully done, the game needs to be changed. so I agree, but there should be an ability to increase your cloaking strength, and cloaking detection system.

As for ship movements, the fighter movements in Entrenchment is great, however, this needs to be improved. Ships running purposefully into asteroids, buildings, other ships, etc could at least be fixed. Also, when ships are moving as a fleet, give the option of moving as a fleet but in no specific formation. Maybe a command that tells to move a formation or in general direction.

As for planets, sure making them as solid as the buildings are nice and when explosion hit the planet surface, it should do some planetary damage.

As for damage per say, when ships explode, don't they damage other ships in close vacinty? (or can this be done in entrenchment)

As for free space, maybe a planetary system, maybe it isn't so round... so it can act like a boundary.

The thing is with capturing ships and stations is that do you have the techs to use them, sure if you are doing for the same race you could use it immediately but for other races how would we do it, like C&C you have to research it just to re-use it.

Well, as for more planetary slots and more powerful broadcast center, you could mod the entity files and then get it...

Interstellar phase lanes(not all systems autoconnected)

beig able to turn off long range jumps technology so u
can make systems connected only through wormholes, not star and have to fight your
way through (like jump nodes in FreeSpace)

Well you could just use one star or remove the tech from each player. No phase lanes to the star. just pure wormholes

-binary star systems, blackholes...

mod

As for planetary invasion....instead of bombing your enemies to bits and then re-colonizing, using the diplomacy, you could "pursade" population to join you as is.

Ehm... maybe u didnt get me.. I was talking about ship name lenght limit (in characters/letters), which is currently set to 13 characters. That is just not enough for some famous ship names (Enterprise, Tlahuizcalpantecuhtli... ) especially when has to include prefixes (TDN). How about increasing it to something more reasonable? Autoship names count doesnt bother me...

another idea: naming fleets! 

This being a diplomacy minded expansion set, I think they should add a meter to measure the consequences of your actions. For example if your a peaceful guy, the meter would mark you so. If your some beligerant conqueoror, then the meter would tell you and all the ai you are. This all would affect your dealings in the game, directly and indirectly. Being peaceful would mean your society would be more open to the universe, and as a result your trade would increase. Also when trying to make a deal with an empire equal to or stronger than your own, you would have more results. Smaller more insular empires would be the opposite, as they are most often hardened into mistrust to larger benevolet powers. If you're war-like, your civilization would reflect it. Ships and military tech would be cheaper, while social programs would command a higher expense do to the civ's disregaurd for personal welfare. When diplomatically dealing with empires you would have a higher chance of itimidating the, basically manhandling the smaller ones, pushing the equal ones, and commanding the disrespect by the more powerful ones who see you as pathetic.

You would start in the middle of the meter in the beginning of each game, but by midgame your morality should be well decided. If you don't like your empire morality, you can spend credits in game to change it, maybe reflecting the government spending immensive effort to change. Some research might even make this cheaper, for example the TEC's master politicians would have an easier time than the hivemind of the Unity.

Some technology might even have a required morality. I always thought planet destroyers like the Novalith were a little wrong for a peaceful society, so maybe to be able to research and use it, you would have to have a ruthless morality.

I whole heartedly agree with the idea of embassies and consols being built around planets. Maybe by building an embassy around another empires homeworld, you would gradually get them to like you more. It would be a slow process so it wouldn't happen immediatly. However someone mentioned the enemy destroying your embassies to decrease your favor with the targets homeworld. My additition is to have spys, if they are implemented be able to target the embassy and for a large some destroy it.

They could also destroy other structures at different prices, depending on their importance. It should always exceed the price of the structure so its not spammable. This means the player will have to strategically choose his targets as it will be too costly not to do so.

One last thing is the idea of system capitals being implemented. They would require research, and wouldn't be nearly as powerful as empire capitals. Not only is this realistic, but it would greatly increase the taxes collected do to increased alliegence. You should also be able to transfer empire capitals to these at a lowered cost.

Diplomacy is a deadly game.

Geez. A piece of paper is one thing, the actual relations is another.
You can have 100% relations in Soase and yet not have a peace treaty.
Hitler was always going to attack Russia. The nonagression pact was just play on his part.
Stalin on the other hand strongly believed in Hitler's good intentions. He was so convinced they were good friends that he waved off all reports of Wehrmacht activity in Poland months before the invasion on Russia.
Stalin did nothing to safeguard himself.

In other words.

Hitler played with Stalin using political promise and bluff so that Stalin liked him above 90%.
Nevertheless he attacked.

If this above suggestion passed, Hitler would not have been able to attack Russia because Stalin liked him too much.
"Oh, poor comrade, how could I want to kill you and take your lands. You liked me so much. I'm sorry, I'll retreat."

I agree.. Things like trading techs, ships, planets or spies are okay, but but adding things like religions, political parties, governors and complicated relations is just  too much for combat-oriented realtime multiplayer game. There are more important things to add than complex diplomacy stuff. As you said, 7DeadlyDins and graphics mods are good inspiration, along with threads like this.

I've noticed that many people want cloakable ships to be able to sneak around, but there really is one way to provide all that without having cloaking. Simple: fog of war. We're all familiar with it, from Civilization to Age of Empires, but Sins doesn't have it. Sure, you can't see enemy planets, but I'd say that jumping into an enemy or uncolonized system shouldn't allow you to see EVERYTHING in the gravwell. POssibly it could be made so that ships can only see a little bit at a time. This way, you could try and sneak ships through areas, or try and hide from a superior force. Maybe an asteroid field would add to this, and make the range you could see severely less. As an added bonus for scouts, which for me at least become nothing more than kamikazes (Advent) or useless (TEC&Vasari) once everything has been explored, they could have a much, much larger area of view in a gravwell then other ships. By adding fog of war, you could set up ambushes and such, and try and catch the enemy unaware.And that would be awesome.

Also, privateers. Add a few units (say two frigates and a cruiser) that you can control, and are not shown to be owned by you. Then add a bonus research feature which allows you to impersonate other empire's ships. That way you could use these imposters to sneak through enemy territory, because they would think you're their ally. Another way to do this would be to allow ships to get captured. I don't know if any of you have read Saints of a Solar Empire, but there's one part when the Advent captured a handful of TEC capital ships, and snuck them into a planet and into a big defensive area, and started shooting. It caught the TEC off gaurd, and inflicted a ton of damage. It would be nice to be able to capture, say, a Vasari ship, fly it to their home, and then..KABOOM blow them up while they're still confused. To make it fairer, so you couldn't capture a ton of cap ships, you'd have to stay within your fleet capacity.

One final thing. I don't know how hard this would be, but if it is possible, I'd like one change more than any other.

IF all our planets are destroyed, but we have one ship left that can colonize, please do not make us lose. That one ship could still colonize a new planet, and start again. That would add a whole new level of awesome, and create a Battlestar Galactica-esque feel when you lose all your planets, and all you have left are a handful of cruisers, a battleship and a Utility capship that can colonize,  and you have to flee from your enemy in order to start life over.

Okay, I shouldn't have brought this up because it's going to start a red herring history conversation. Let's not make any more references to the details of real-world history.

I just wanted to agree with HeroicHerald in that a non-aggression pact is very different from a true, long-lasting alliance where two empires have fought side by side together in several campaigns. In the latter scenario, citizens of the empires and their rulers actually have developed trust and history together. Whereas a non-aggression pact is a treaty of strategic convenience, perhaps made very cynically, and the empires and rulers involved don't necessarily trust or like each other at the moment. The pact may set the groundwork for a real alliance in the future, or just simply delay eventual hostility.