So, like many people I've already put many hours in Stellaris and though I've enjoyed it, it still feels a bit rough around some edges. So what I decided to do was just write everything that annoyed me and could be improved/changed down, and now decided to post it along with little bits of commentary to explain my suggestions. Besides this, also a sort of mini-review at the end that is more about the feel of the game than about any specific thing in general. So here, in no particular order, my list of suggestions.
General
The ability to change hotkeys through an ingame menu. This would also show you which hotkeys are in fact all available.
Game-setup
More galaxy-generation options would be nice. Not just shape and amount of stars, but also things that are currently restricted to the gamefiles. Things like amount of planets, amount of habitable planets etc. See also these two (Source: unknown and GalCiV III): http://i.imgur.com/gt33Ryt.png and http://i.imgur.com/2frpmqs.jpg
I use a “full RGB chart” mod for colours, which made me understand why you haven't gone for full RGB in colour picking mode. A white or any extremely bright colour empire makes it hard to see hyperlanes, resources and other things. Nonetheless, you could at least allow “full colour access” for flag primary and secondary colour, and make map colour a seperate setting. Also nicei n cases where you don't want your primary colour on flag be your map colour.
When starting a game, have a thing like in EU and CK where it says if achievements are enabled or not.
War-related
Wars ending instantly feels weird and seemingly comes out of nowhere at times. Instead, just have an offer of “complete surrender” that does the same. However, refusing this offer gives a happiness penalty to all non-militarist pops, that gets bigger the longer you “ignore” complete surrender.
The ability to claim non-wargoals at a higher cost. Sometimes a war might take so long or take way more resources than you imagined. To then come away with “just” one planet can feel rather disappointing/annoying. Instead, the ability to take/do things that you didn't state as wargoal, but at a higher cost (both in warscore and relations penalty). You could also give a temporary extra happiness penalty to pacifist pops for “going beyond what was stated”.
A button that shows you all current wars (that you know of), or alternatively a “war map mode” that shows every empire at war in a colour, and the empire they're at war with in a slightly different shade. (Say empire A becomes dark red, fighting empires B and C in light red, whilst empire D in dark green is fighting empire E in light green). In case an empire is in multiple wars, you can use striped colours in such a map mode.
Fleets should be able to ignore mining stations, science vessels and construction ships. Besides the fact that they're arguably civilian targets, nothing is more annoying then when you're chasing an enemy fleet, but you either have to make a massive swerve around a mining station to get to them without attacking the station. The enemy fleet instead now gets the extra time to warp/wormhole/hyperdrive out.
If a war ends that you're not involved with, but you know either one or multiple of the involved empires, have a popup that says “peace declared” that also shows the peace terms.
War-goals are currently severely lacking. What if I want to go to war for a strategic resource at the other side of some empire, but don't want that system because I can't connect it to my empire. There's already at least one mod that adds wargoals, but that isn't achievement compatible ofcourse, and just because there's a mod that “fixes it” doesn't mean it should be left in its current state
Ship-related
When a ship has multiple orders, it doesn't show progress in how close it is to going FTL. This is a minor annoyance.
When a fleet is selected and you press the “return to nearest starport button”, whilst holding the control key, it sends the fleet to the nearest starport you own, rather than any of yours or an ally's. However, this does not work for ctrl+B. (B being the hoteky for the “return to nearest starport” command)
I want to put this under interface but I'll put it here anyway. The ability to have an EU4-style fleet designer.
Galaxy Map
The ability to toggle “proper range” of individual wormhole stations. So instead of showing a “border”, it shows just radius of everything. See also this picture: http://i.imgur.com/kIYdN3b.jpg
The ability to toggle the background dust without removing empire colours. I know there's a console command that removes the dust, but it also removes empire colours. You can re-add those with a mesh, but that looks weird/ugly. What about perhaps the middle ground of only showing dust inside empires, thus enabling colours but leaving uninhabited space dark.
Why is the angle at which we view the galaxy locked? (Not the up/down angle, but the rotation). Maybe I prefer playing with my empire in the bottom of the galaxy, or just
Sectors
The ability to tax minerals and energy seperately in sectors, as well as the ability to “give” sectors strategic resources. Nothing is quite as annoying as giving a sector a system with a building that uses a unique resource, and then forgetting that your one instance of that unique resource in fact comes from the other side of your empire.
More interface, but still. When zooming out, I don't mind seeing the names of sectors, whilst I do mind seeing the names of nebulae. On top of this, I'd like it if sector name size on the map scales with the size of the sector, instead of always being that small above the capital.
Government
It'd be nice if you could have “dynastic empires”. Shared last name for the ruler in autocracies option.
Election mandates and Agenda in the non-autocratic forms of government are very limited. If you're a non-slaving empire, there are only two election mandates as of Clarke, and I believe two or three Agenda. Not only that, but the election mandates force going wide, because at some point you'll have built all possible stations in your empire. What about mandates relating to fleet, to planetary development, other policy changes than just slaving. Likewise, why do Agenda seem to be limited to fleet and frontier?
Interface related and other
When hovering over a fleet in the outliner or on a system/insystem, show how much power it's currently using in maintenance.
When hovering over a resource in the top bar, how many months left until you've either run out of resources or until you hit the cap.
The ability to re-order items in the Outliner. Both categories (Maybe I want civilian ships on top, instead of planets), as well as subitems (Maybe I want civilian ships to be ordered by type, instead of by when things were built)
If a planet's Reassembled Ship Shelter, Planetary Administration or Planetary Capital can be upgraded, have a small icon stating so next to the planet in the outliner. If the planet has a different kind of building that can be upgraded, use a different icon. If the planet has a different kind of building that can be upgraded, but you don't have the resources, have that different icon, but greyed out. If there are no upgradable buildings, have no icon.
A research outliner, as seen mocked up here: http://i.imgur.com/xP2cVce.jpg
When in the planets and sectors menu, the ability to add spaceport modules by clicking on a plus there, as well as the ability to build/upgrade a spaceport from there.
When looking at the habitability of a planet before colonization, it would be nice if it accounted for modifiers. Eg (extreme) habitability.
An ingame clock, perhaps in the space between the outliner and the ingame date. I don't mean “what time is it ingame”, I mean “what time is it according to my pc without having to tab out, oh god it's 3 AM already”.
In the situation log, group debris by system, rather than just a massive list of it all. After war, it's not rare to sometimes have a dozen bits of debris in a system. This really clutters it up. Instead, just have “Sol system debris”, and when you expand it lists all the bits of debris individually.
And whilst on debris, the ability to rightclick on a system and then to press “analyze all debris”. And the ability to analyze debris when you rightclick on the small orange exclamation mark, just like you can for research projects.
When terraforming, show what the new habitability values would be for your species for the planets you could terraform to.
The building queue is currently pretty much has no interaction. You have to go through the tiles individually and cancel/rebuy buildings if you need to change the order for any reason. An actual queue with draggable items would be nice.
The ability to specify numbers in trade deals. (EG, click on instant minerals and just enter “2500”), or a slider with minimum 1 and maximum being the amount of that resource an empire has. That, or one more button click for a bigger change. Shift+ctrl for 500 or 1000 resources for example.
The option to have a popup when you gain or lose a system due to shifting borders. Whilst it's obvious you're gaining systems when you build a colony/frontier outpost, it can be less immediately obvious when another empire “steals” a system because they increased their border range through technology, or built a frontier outpost on your border.
I imagine that especially in multiplayer, it might be nice to have “organized pauses”, and to have something like an automatic pause at set years or intervals.
The ability to choose which “events” (anomoly discovered, wardeclaration etc.) trigger a pause on happening.
Mineral Silos currently feel very much not worth it.
The option to show all known locations of a specific strategic resource on the galaxy map.
The option to change your primary species with genemodding (I believe it currently makes them xenos to your empire)
The workshop currently seems broken in that you can't filter by tags.
Summary
All in all I'm having fun with Stellaris. However, it seems to have spread itself out thin and in doing so made many things possible, but only superficially so. There's vassals and protectorates, but they don't really offer much interaction. There's fleet warfare, but it's mostly limited to “find the fleet then play tag”. We can purge pops, but the ability to fully annihilate enemy planets through bombardment, even with lategame technology seems nonexistant. Ultimately, my judgement is that the game is currently fun, but if you're a diehard fan of the genre you'll find it lacking. In fact, diehard fans might sadly be better off waiting until (expansion) patches add in more content that seems missing now.
EDIT:
Forgot perhaps the most important ability of all
I'd love it if I were able to "upgrade to maximum". Especially on new planets, it'd be neat if you can upgrade those power plants to max level instead of waiting for it to finish and then ordering the next level.
General
The ability to change hotkeys through an ingame menu. This would also show you which hotkeys are in fact all available.
Game-setup
More galaxy-generation options would be nice. Not just shape and amount of stars, but also things that are currently restricted to the gamefiles. Things like amount of planets, amount of habitable planets etc. See also these two (Source: unknown and GalCiV III): http://i.imgur.com/gt33Ryt.png and http://i.imgur.com/2frpmqs.jpg
I use a “full RGB chart” mod for colours, which made me understand why you haven't gone for full RGB in colour picking mode. A white or any extremely bright colour empire makes it hard to see hyperlanes, resources and other things. Nonetheless, you could at least allow “full colour access” for flag primary and secondary colour, and make map colour a seperate setting. Also nicei n cases where you don't want your primary colour on flag be your map colour.
When starting a game, have a thing like in EU and CK where it says if achievements are enabled or not.
War-related
Wars ending instantly feels weird and seemingly comes out of nowhere at times. Instead, just have an offer of “complete surrender” that does the same. However, refusing this offer gives a happiness penalty to all non-militarist pops, that gets bigger the longer you “ignore” complete surrender.
The ability to claim non-wargoals at a higher cost. Sometimes a war might take so long or take way more resources than you imagined. To then come away with “just” one planet can feel rather disappointing/annoying. Instead, the ability to take/do things that you didn't state as wargoal, but at a higher cost (both in warscore and relations penalty). You could also give a temporary extra happiness penalty to pacifist pops for “going beyond what was stated”.
A button that shows you all current wars (that you know of), or alternatively a “war map mode” that shows every empire at war in a colour, and the empire they're at war with in a slightly different shade. (Say empire A becomes dark red, fighting empires B and C in light red, whilst empire D in dark green is fighting empire E in light green). In case an empire is in multiple wars, you can use striped colours in such a map mode.
Fleets should be able to ignore mining stations, science vessels and construction ships. Besides the fact that they're arguably civilian targets, nothing is more annoying then when you're chasing an enemy fleet, but you either have to make a massive swerve around a mining station to get to them without attacking the station. The enemy fleet instead now gets the extra time to warp/wormhole/hyperdrive out.
If a war ends that you're not involved with, but you know either one or multiple of the involved empires, have a popup that says “peace declared” that also shows the peace terms.
War-goals are currently severely lacking. What if I want to go to war for a strategic resource at the other side of some empire, but don't want that system because I can't connect it to my empire. There's already at least one mod that adds wargoals, but that isn't achievement compatible ofcourse, and just because there's a mod that “fixes it” doesn't mean it should be left in its current state
Ship-related
When a ship has multiple orders, it doesn't show progress in how close it is to going FTL. This is a minor annoyance.
When a fleet is selected and you press the “return to nearest starport button”, whilst holding the control key, it sends the fleet to the nearest starport you own, rather than any of yours or an ally's. However, this does not work for ctrl+B. (B being the hoteky for the “return to nearest starport” command)
I want to put this under interface but I'll put it here anyway. The ability to have an EU4-style fleet designer.
Galaxy Map
The ability to toggle “proper range” of individual wormhole stations. So instead of showing a “border”, it shows just radius of everything. See also this picture: http://i.imgur.com/kIYdN3b.jpg
The ability to toggle the background dust without removing empire colours. I know there's a console command that removes the dust, but it also removes empire colours. You can re-add those with a mesh, but that looks weird/ugly. What about perhaps the middle ground of only showing dust inside empires, thus enabling colours but leaving uninhabited space dark.
Why is the angle at which we view the galaxy locked? (Not the up/down angle, but the rotation). Maybe I prefer playing with my empire in the bottom of the galaxy, or just
Sectors
The ability to tax minerals and energy seperately in sectors, as well as the ability to “give” sectors strategic resources. Nothing is quite as annoying as giving a sector a system with a building that uses a unique resource, and then forgetting that your one instance of that unique resource in fact comes from the other side of your empire.
More interface, but still. When zooming out, I don't mind seeing the names of sectors, whilst I do mind seeing the names of nebulae. On top of this, I'd like it if sector name size on the map scales with the size of the sector, instead of always being that small above the capital.
Government
It'd be nice if you could have “dynastic empires”. Shared last name for the ruler in autocracies option.
Election mandates and Agenda in the non-autocratic forms of government are very limited. If you're a non-slaving empire, there are only two election mandates as of Clarke, and I believe two or three Agenda. Not only that, but the election mandates force going wide, because at some point you'll have built all possible stations in your empire. What about mandates relating to fleet, to planetary development, other policy changes than just slaving. Likewise, why do Agenda seem to be limited to fleet and frontier?
Interface related and other
When hovering over a fleet in the outliner or on a system/insystem, show how much power it's currently using in maintenance.
When hovering over a resource in the top bar, how many months left until you've either run out of resources or until you hit the cap.
The ability to re-order items in the Outliner. Both categories (Maybe I want civilian ships on top, instead of planets), as well as subitems (Maybe I want civilian ships to be ordered by type, instead of by when things were built)
If a planet's Reassembled Ship Shelter, Planetary Administration or Planetary Capital can be upgraded, have a small icon stating so next to the planet in the outliner. If the planet has a different kind of building that can be upgraded, use a different icon. If the planet has a different kind of building that can be upgraded, but you don't have the resources, have that different icon, but greyed out. If there are no upgradable buildings, have no icon.
A research outliner, as seen mocked up here: http://i.imgur.com/xP2cVce.jpg
When in the planets and sectors menu, the ability to add spaceport modules by clicking on a plus there, as well as the ability to build/upgrade a spaceport from there.
When looking at the habitability of a planet before colonization, it would be nice if it accounted for modifiers. Eg (extreme) habitability.
An ingame clock, perhaps in the space between the outliner and the ingame date. I don't mean “what time is it ingame”, I mean “what time is it according to my pc without having to tab out, oh god it's 3 AM already”.
In the situation log, group debris by system, rather than just a massive list of it all. After war, it's not rare to sometimes have a dozen bits of debris in a system. This really clutters it up. Instead, just have “Sol system debris”, and when you expand it lists all the bits of debris individually.
And whilst on debris, the ability to rightclick on a system and then to press “analyze all debris”. And the ability to analyze debris when you rightclick on the small orange exclamation mark, just like you can for research projects.
When terraforming, show what the new habitability values would be for your species for the planets you could terraform to.
The building queue is currently pretty much has no interaction. You have to go through the tiles individually and cancel/rebuy buildings if you need to change the order for any reason. An actual queue with draggable items would be nice.
The ability to specify numbers in trade deals. (EG, click on instant minerals and just enter “2500”), or a slider with minimum 1 and maximum being the amount of that resource an empire has. That, or one more button click for a bigger change. Shift+ctrl for 500 or 1000 resources for example.
The option to have a popup when you gain or lose a system due to shifting borders. Whilst it's obvious you're gaining systems when you build a colony/frontier outpost, it can be less immediately obvious when another empire “steals” a system because they increased their border range through technology, or built a frontier outpost on your border.
I imagine that especially in multiplayer, it might be nice to have “organized pauses”, and to have something like an automatic pause at set years or intervals.
The ability to choose which “events” (anomoly discovered, wardeclaration etc.) trigger a pause on happening.
Mineral Silos currently feel very much not worth it.
The option to show all known locations of a specific strategic resource on the galaxy map.
The option to change your primary species with genemodding (I believe it currently makes them xenos to your empire)
The workshop currently seems broken in that you can't filter by tags.
Summary
All in all I'm having fun with Stellaris. However, it seems to have spread itself out thin and in doing so made many things possible, but only superficially so. There's vassals and protectorates, but they don't really offer much interaction. There's fleet warfare, but it's mostly limited to “find the fleet then play tag”. We can purge pops, but the ability to fully annihilate enemy planets through bombardment, even with lategame technology seems nonexistant. Ultimately, my judgement is that the game is currently fun, but if you're a diehard fan of the genre you'll find it lacking. In fact, diehard fans might sadly be better off waiting until (expansion) patches add in more content that seems missing now.
EDIT:
Forgot perhaps the most important ability of all
I'd love it if I were able to "upgrade to maximum". Especially on new planets, it'd be neat if you can upgrade those power plants to max level instead of waiting for it to finish and then ordering the next level.
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