I would like to see a more romantic, spaced view of the Game.

1. I think the ships are looking a bit too clunky and comic-style-like. To much like Lego or something. Like Toys for Kids. I also didn't liked this in Galciv. They don't look like big bad ships. I hope you can see what i mean when you look at this:
http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots/x3_screen_178.jpg
http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots/x3_screen_266.jpg
http://www.egosoft.com/games/x3/screenshots/x3_screen_141.jpg
I think it's too late for it. But i hope you consider this more mature and realistic look for future games.
2. I don't completly like how you are presenting your information in the research and building part. For example you call things like this: Laser, Improved Laser. Even more improved Laser. And you combine this with a passive damage increase. I think it would add to immersion if you call this Upgrades in another way. Like: Laser -> Phaser -> Big Beam of Doom. I think it would be much better if you say: "My ships are owning your armada with my new Phaser-Beams!" then "I owned you with my Laser 2 that givese 5% damage increase". You could also give the weapons another beam color. It just feels more like a real archievement if i get a new weapon instead of "+5% Damage". I know its only a other way to express the same thing. But it feels a lot better than just the current number play. I think this number-play should be something you do internal.
It would be nice if you rename the Planet-Advancements, too. At the moment it's just something like for example "Tactics 1", "Tactics 2" or other things. It would be really nice if you could rename this things to not so abstract names. For example: "Tactics 1" could be "Planetary Defense Line Control Center" and "Tactics 2" could be "Orbital Defense Plattform Interlink". And it would be a REAL good thing if you could show this advancement on the planet and the surrounding region, too(as litte buildings on the planet surface or little orbital structures - see point 3).
3. It would be nice if we get some additional structures on and around our planet when we build them up. It would be nice to see my progress on the planets, too.
4. It would be a real good thing if you let us(and the enemy) build bigger fleets. I played a small map yesterday and were able to Build ONE capital ship(50 Fleet points) and 6 Cruisers. Its very hard to defend my planets if i am constantly under attack by loads of pirate-ships AND the enemy AI(Even if i increase the bounty to a higher value than my enemy i got hit by the pirate all the time) I just had not enough ships and it was impossible to defeat the pirate-ai because he had nearly 100 ships around his pirate station. The best thing would be to not use fleet points with your capital ship.
5. Make it possible to destroy the pirates even on smaller maps. As said above you are very limited on this map. But the pirates are not. They have about one hundred ships around their base. I have only 1 Battleship and 6 cruisers. It should be somehow possible to destroy the pirate. At least i see no chance i'm aware of.
6. It would be a nice future addition to bring in more diplomatic and even some spy-operations. Like cloaked scout ships, planetary sabotage(to turn down allegiance rating).
7. Resistances against special weapon types would be nice. For example: armor against lasers(to get only 50% damage or things like this). It would decrease the hoarding-style gameplay and bring more tactics ingame. But i think that there's a big rebalancing effort needed to implement this. Rock-Paper-Scissors...you know...
Thanks for reading!

Best Regards,
Moontoon