lol. I gave the DLs 200% range. I like carnage.

I'm pretty sure that was the designed intent, to slow down the colony rush and then gradually phase out as a concern. It can still be a problem in very sparse or very clustered maps, but for the most part it should feel less relevant as your empire gets stronger. It's not quite as blatant a check-box as the Universal Translator tech, but pretty close.

They can only miss high. Adding the ability to miss low as well certainly won't help them.

My own intent was to make starbase-anchored travel routes a central part of the game. Overall range would be the same as it is now (albeit slightly shorter), but outside of a very small radius from starbases or planets (5 pc radius, maximum) speed would be very low due to the lack of a large device to create massive warp bubbles. The effect would be more pronounced for fleets containing only small or tiny ships, and less so for fleets with large ships, but never outside a starbase trade region should ships be able to travel more than about 5 pc/month.

The idea with this is not just to introduce immersion and realism, but to add a strategic aspect of the game that is currently not present. Two civilizations, for their mutual benefit, may opt to build a series of jointly owned and controlled starbases between their local starbase-transport networks, allowing for improved trade and military cooperation. However, once the two civilizations have built up a dependence on the trade route, a third malicious civilization may declare war solely for the purpose of breaking the chain of starbases and slowing down travel, crippling the economy of the two participating players. Alternatively, a player may locate the fleets of another player it is at war with and note that they are near the edge of a hard range established by a starbase: knowing this, they may endeavor to strike at the starbase that is allowing the ships to travel as far as it is, causing the ships to wander in deep space until they either return to the player or (if evil) possibly join pirate bands in the galaxy.

I would also like to revamp the method of influence spread, particularly through the elimination of influence starbases and in light of multi-maps if they are implemented. Influence modules on starbases (and planets themselves, for that matter) should be unusable to claim territory, but should rather affect freighters that pass through the relevant starbase range and allow them to exert influence on the destination planets. This could of course be mixed with citizen races, cultures, and citizenships, which would make the game far more interesting and add other mechanics that will not be mentioned here. Deep space shouldn't be claimable, as it is impossible to maintain control over vast swathes of empty wastes, but planets should be.

Yes it is explained in GC2 that the starmap is a flat and spacially distorted map showing travel time rather than spacial distance between objects. The explaination given that near large masses warp drives are less effective. This means the distances between stars can be traveled more quickly than distances in proximity to stars.

Hence the map shows stars seeming very close together.

As to real science of warped space well we would need either much larger amounts of energy than the game suggests or exotic matter with things like negative mass properties so none of these 4x space games are very realistic in that sense nor is star trek. But it's a game so I over look this

A bit off-topic, but

I understand this. My vision of multiple maps is to make it fairly minimalistic, as in Spore: one could scroll over a star and see the planets, together with their TerraScores (poorly done analogue of Planet Quality). However, one could only travel from star to star in that game, or within a system from planet to planet: I would preserve hexes/triangles to allow for a greater range of movement.

Here are some illustrative photographs:

Regarding full map + system maps... no thanks.  Being able to see everything without having to jump between maps is important.  Having to zoom into system maps would add little but cost time.  Hell if we could find a way to manage planetary improvements without having to change screens I'd be all for it.  I like in endless space and civ5 where you can see what each planet/city is building from the main map without having to zoom in and check.

But back to the OP, the OP basically wants space roads.  Forget all the lore and realism of hyperspace or whatever, realism isn't that important.

Space roads aren't a bad idea.  You don't need to make all ships move slower to have them be useful, ship speed seems pretty good where it is.

Perhaps not tied to starbases though, but some kind of slipstream you can set up which can be controlled via diplomacy (taxes, free access, no access).  Or maybe some kind of warpgate tech.  It would be helpful for defence purposes, possibly for trading purposes, or for income (x BC per turn for access to roads) if say the guy on your left is at war with the guy on your right. 

I don't think this is unworkable but it is at odds with the current way the engine maps things so not at all a negligible change to make considering they aren’t far from beta changing how maps are held and presented and then changing all the other systems that use the map is actually a fair amount of work.

Add to that they have said they want to keep the feel of a GC game and the 2D distorted scale map is part of all the other GC games and I can’t see any hope of this system being implemented as you want.

Short version I think the map will stay broadly as is.

If they allow for multiple map objects to be created in the game, it would be fine by me. Perhaps "system maps" could become another game setting like Mega Events for those who want to play with them.