Loving the game so far!
I have a suggestion for further down the road - this may already be planned or was in Gal Civ 3, so forgive me if I am being repetitive.
I remember in EVE online, there were chances to move into a certain sector of space where you would find abundant resources for a short amount of time. I always thought this feature was cool.
It would be interesting to see "wormholes" in Gal Civ that don't simply take you to other parts of the galaxy, but go to a different area entirely. It would be a small zone with massive amounts of monsters/pirates and great loot, a super planet, bunch of anomalies, special ship, or maybe a new feature entirely. So not only do we have slipstreams to explore, but we have individual "hex gates" that take you off map entirely.
Just a thought.
Cheers!