I think it's stuff like this that led to
this thread. FF is pretty sweet and is awesome as proof of concept, and pretty fun to play in its own right. But it seems like a few things like that could take it beyond "mere mod" status and make it a really great game in itself, like, IMHO, Fall from Heaven is.
That's why I'm really starting to give more credence to the idea of starting a mod group to make "Final Frontier Plus" or FF2 or whatever. If Shafer and Firaxis are planning on taking FF further, then great. If not, I think it would be a neat community project. So, if someone else takes charge, I'll gladly join up. If no one is ready to take charge, but there is enough interest, I'll see about forming up some ideas myself, sometime after the new year when things calm down at work.
Some ideas like: PD ships not being able to move out of a system, buildings that allow ship upgrades (IMHO, this would be more appropriate than using experience for a lot of the upgrades - experience should just apply to crew), more stuff for Construction ships to do (like mine asteroids, as you mentioned above), teleportation between systems at higher tech levels, ground/system-based defenses (and maybe even ground battles? could be interesting if there's a good way to make it work), more civs, including at least one or two alien civs (and unique buildings/units for civs), expanded tech tree (obviously). Would probably want to do something else with the Value system - it seems kind of tacked on... replace with Ethos, perhaps, and Ethos include a couple of religions, the existing Values, and probably a couple of other value systems. Perhaps also add in Corps.