Just repeating myself, but make the ship designer more than just cosmetic.    Steal from something like Gratuitous Space Battles and allow us to designate  behaviors of ships in battle.  

Also make every part have some functionality.    I don't want or need tactical combat...  this game isn't about that and I am glad you have never tried to force it in, but combat should be more than just the current "All ships rush in at maximum speed and then go pew pew pew with their rock/paper/scissors weapons vs armor combos."

On the note of Alpha Centauri, thinker mod (improved ai) is really awesome, Alpha Centauri fans should go try it.

One thing I note that Alpha Centauri really did well, is it managed to give lines to its characters, and have them say things. That's a field that most 4X doesn't do well, and results in sort of pale cultures with empty characters. Santiago discussing how she was going to create the next generation by mass cloning all the greatest members of the previous, Yang's declaration that those unable to feel pain or boredom or other unpleasant emotions cannot possibly be oppressed, Zakharov's final stand against the power of an alien god- all of these were epic plot moments, but also epic moments of character.

Oh, and I'm also on Linux. It feels like the population is strangely high here? Are Linux users just vocal, or do we like 4X? I generally don't advise companies to really support Linux, given that the statistics I've seen is that we're vanishingly rare, and wine generally does its job anyway. But Linux support is always a good thing. Even unofficial support, aka, trying it out on wine and seeing if there's a problem, would be cool.

About combat, I think it could be a good idea to take some pages from "Battlefleet Gothic: Armada": give the player the possibility to choose the fleet's initial deployment formation, then choose the ships' direction (as a group or individually). The ships then will lock on and engage the first enemy ship that enters their weaponry's attack range.

This will allow to keep the classic GalCiv triangle, both offensively

- Missile will be the first to engage (longest range but weakest damage)

- Beam will be second (medium range and damage)

- Kinetic will be last (shortest range but highest damage)

and defensively

- Point Defense (strong vs Missile, neutral vs Kinetic, weak vs Beam)

- Shields (strong vs beam, neutral vs Missile, weak vs Kinetic)

- Armor Plates (strong vs Kinetic, neutral vs Beam, weak vs Missile)

but also will give some tactical option to the player: for example, he can send the main force to attack head on and move around a small group to flank the enemy or hide a group in a nebula or behind asteroid to perform an ambush.

My wish is they magically finish IV by July.

Now back to reality.

Since planets are resource generators now, I hope we can colonize all planets now (including those ubiquitous dead worlds from previous installments).

I wasn't a fan of asteroid mining in GC3. Same with constantly upgrading factories/research labs on planets and starbase modules. Its ok for a few planets, but going through a list of 50 or so gets rather tedious (esp. when all I want to do is force end turn). I'm curious to see how GC4 handles it. I do like the changes I've seen so far to the planet map, so I'm optimistic here.

I think it would be cool if you could "settle" a moon, asteroid belt, or other space objects with a constructor and build an outpost/starbase there so it will function like a resource-generating planet.

Would be neat if we had the option between establishing a dome or subterranean colony on each world, with a series of different bonuses and penalties for each. Maybe higher defense for a subterranean world, for example, but at the cost of morale (no one likes being under ground all the time).

I love almost everything about GalCiv games, but with the defining feature that keeps me coming back being the ship designer, that has to be revamped for 2021. I always hated having to stretch parts to fit my designs and watch the windows or textures stretch, making them look bad. Can we add windows/miscellaneous features after and make them scalable if I want my ship to look big?

Also, if I'm spending several hours making my ships look awesome, is there any way to include them in cutscenes, story snapshots or other things? Watching them in the battle cams was fine but perhaps there's a way to make these more cinematic too?

I look forward to seeing this game progress and am so glad you're continuing the series!

1. Firing arcs
   I would like it if it could be made possible to have firing arcs for weapons in the game. It would change combat dynamics a bit, as the fact that every ship doesn't automatically have maximum damage potential by just being in range with every weapon.
   It would make the different ship sizes (More on that later) more distinct from each other. In GalCiv3 I tend to end up not using the smaller ship types as I progress through the tech-tree. But with firing arcs and other adjustments smaller ships can remain relevant far longer.
2. No ship size categories
   Instead I would like to see all the cosmetic modules that can be used in the ship designer to add mass capacity (Points to add functional components) to the design as they are added, but at the same time it also adds weight to design, thus making it slower and less maneuverable.
   Technically this would allow a player to design the equivalent of a huge ship in turn 1, but said player probably doesn't have powerful enough engines to actually allow it to actually be useful.
   The point is that cost of the ship and it's maneuverability/speed is linked directly to it's ability to load equipment.
3. Multi-function starbases
   Instead of doing like in GalCiv2 and 3 with starbases, where starbases are specialized, I would rather see starbases that you can choose to specialize in one thing, or you can continue adding specializations to them but it doubles the cost of all modules for each specialization added (So 2 specializations = x2 cost, 3 = x4, etc.)
4. No tech-trade offs
   Instead of having tech-nodes where you have to choose a tech specialization, you can get more of the specializations. But it'll slow the rate of technology gain down for the player, as the specializations should be rather expensive and the cost should go up if you select multiple of them. Also researching multiple specializations from the same branch node should put a science tax percentage on the player (Affecting all research) based on the number of branches the player has started researching.
5. Tech specialization can't be traded
   Since tech branches aren't mutually exclusive like in GalCiv3, specialization technologies can't be traded or captured. (You have to develop culture - It can't be bought).