Some new race would be fun. Also we should learn more about the lost or even a small campaign featuring the endless the lost and even the endless civil war that doesn't have anything to do with the main campaign it only adds to the history and lore of the game

New to the party, so I might be repeating a few things others have already mentioned, but here are a few ideas:

-Race specific techs: Some of the current techs don't make sense with all of the races (e.g. approval techs generally focus around making the populace happy.  For Cravers, that doesn't really make sense.  Maybe Craver approval techs should be themed around suppressing rebellion and dissent).  It would be nice to have race-specific tech trees that line up a little better with the personality of each race.  There are already some of these (e.g. the Riftborn's reverse terraforming techs), but not quite enough to make each race feel very distinct.

-Race factions: We have race factions, but they're essentially just reskins of one of the main races (e.g. the Mavros are just reskinned Sophons, the Heretics are reskinned Vodyani, etc.).  It would be interesting to have quests where you side with one race faction or the other and gain access to faction-specific traits and technologies (maybe altering whatever race-specific techs you might have access to), or change how your civilization interacts with other races based on which faction is supported.

-Rework on special nodes: right now you get bonuses from special nodes by extending your sphere of influence around them.  For races that don't really take advantage of influence as much, they generally can't take advantage of the special nodes unless you build a behemoth and park it there, which requires a pretty heavy resource investment.  It would make more sense to have something like a planetary expeditions (built with industry and resources like a planetary improvement or a ship) that could harvest the bonuses and maybe some unique resources from special nodes 

-Movement rework: Right now, you travel between nodes via pre-defined lanes.  Once you start on a lane, you can't change direction until you reach a node and you can't attack any passing enemy ships. I generally like Endless Space better than Galactic Civilizations, but I like Galactic Civilizations' approach to movement a little better.  You can travel in any direction (along a flat hex grid) and you can turn around or change destination if you need to adjust without reaching a planet or other feature first.  In their idea of lanes, you build improvements to boost travel speed in a line between two anchor points that you build.  It's fastest to follow the lanes, but you can still exit the lane at any point along it's length and go off in a different direction, and you can also attack (or be attacked) by enemy ships anywhere on the map, not just at nodes.

-3-D space: Pretty self explanatory.  In real space, you're not confined to a 2D surface, and you can pack so many more neighbors and features around a planet in three dimensions compared to two.  My poor computer might not be happy about the increased processing demand, but it would make a better game.  

I would like to see Endless Space 2, but with additional faction dependent storylines and progression paths.
Often, I found that a sub optimal placement, or presence of pirates, could be offset with exploration and quests in the early game. Leaning in to these mechanics would improve the game considerably. For the battles, I often found that it boiled down to ascertaining the AIs weaknesses through trial and error. Low on shields? Retrofit ships with energy weapons designs. Heavy on missiles? Retrofit to ballistics with an emphasis on close range combat. It can get tedious in the end game, because I typically shoot for fleet with 10k+ attack power. On Endless difficulty, it's an automatic win. I would consider this mechanic broken. That being said, I found that mechanics like ship boarding and crew damage could help turn the tides when I'm loosing a match.
 Pie in the sky? I would say that Battle Fleet Gothica 2 meets Endless Space 2 would be the greatest game of all time. It would be so sick that people would do nothing but play that game for years. Please make it and keep up the good work. 

I want more alien, non-humanoid factions.
We had many in Endless Space 1, not sure why they decided to go this way for the second game...

luk7f wrote:

I want more alien, non-humanoid factions.
We had many in Endless Space 1, not sure why they decided to go this way for the second game...

If I were to assume?
Harder to animate.

A lot of these ideas are really great. Not sure if this has been mentioned but I would love to see turn based tactical combat in ES3. A robust tactical combat system would help differentiate it from other 4x games.

This was an element of endless legend, and going back further to master of Orion 1 and 2. Games like Stellaris and gal civ feel a sterile when it comes to combat. Meaning that it if weapon x is greater than defense y, you win the battle. Tactical combat would add another layer to help players visualize the difference in weapons and put more emphasis on design. For example missies fire from further away, energy weapons closer, smaller ships / better engines move  faster and can take advantage of terrain.

Introducing terrain could add elements like asteroids, tactical positioning. Maybe the battles have certain modifiers for fighting close to the sun, nebula, or in an asteroid belt. It would also allow starbases to modify battles in different way, where the defender could stay close to the starbase for protection and attackers would have a siege / blockade element (or otherwise risk attacking the starbase and opposing forces at greater strength).

Leerooy_Jenkins wrote:

A lot of these ideas are really great. Not sure if this has been mentioned but I would love to see turn based tactical combat in ES3. A robust tactical combat system would help differentiate it from other 4x games.

This was an element of endless legend, and going back further to master of Orion 1 and 2. Games like Stellaris and gal civ feel a sterile when it comes to combat. Meaning that it if weapon x is greater than defense y, you win the battle. Tactical combat would add another layer to help players visualize the difference in weapons and put more emphasis on design. For example missies fire from further away, energy weapons closer, smaller ships / better engines move  faster and can take advantage of terrain.

Introducing terrain could add elements like asteroids, tactical positioning. Maybe the battles have certain modifiers for fighting close to the sun, nebula, or in an asteroid belt. It would also allow starbases to modify battles in different way, where the defender could stay close to the starbase for protection and attackers would have a siege / blockade element (or otherwise risk attacking the starbase and opposing forces at greater strength).

Deeming by the profile, do I assume you are new to the endless series.
(correct me if I am wrong)
HOWEVER:
While I am not against the idea of turnbased combat...

Is the idea of the missles, and energy weapons actually already a thing.
Missiles work best long ranged.
Flak and projectile weaponry works best close range.
Energy weapons work at any range, but severely hampered by shields.

And I personally feel that the card system, mixed with the dynamic camera battles is more unique than what other games do.
But that is just me.

I would like to see them not induce game-breaking bugs with patches and then refuse to fix them, even throughout several patches and DLCs later. 

I've gone from this company being one of my favorites to one of my all time least favorites. I just can't believe they can create such great games and then destroy them. I absolutely hope I'm not scammed into buying an Endless Space 3 based on how shiny it is. I won't ever forget what they did to this game. They only way they could restore my faith is to actually fix ES2, not some lip-service community patch that leaves game-breaking bugs unaddressed.

I managed to go a long time without buying Humankind, but ended up getting it in the last supersale a few weeks ago. But at least I went into it with low expectations. I had been following it hotly during its beta playtests (I forget the special name they give them), but around that time is when I started to realize the state they had left ES2 in. 

As far as I know, at least Endless Legend is still free of game-ruining bugs. So there is one game of theirs I know I can enjoy.

RabidHobbit wrote:
I just can't believe they can create such great games and then destroy them.

Savage, but fair.

RabidHobbit wrote:

I would like to see them not induce game-breaking bugs with patches and then refuse to fix them, even throughout several patches and DLCs later. 

I've gone from this company being one of my favorites to one of my all time least favorites. I just can't believe they can create such great games and then destroy them. I absolutely hope I'm not scammed into buying an Endless Space 3 based on how shiny it is. I won't ever forget what they did to this game. They only way they could restore my faith is to actually fix ES2, not some lip-service community patch that leaves game-breaking bugs unaddressed.

I managed to go a long time without buying Humankind, but ended up getting it in the last supersale a few weeks ago. But at least I went into it with low expectations. I had been following it hotly during its beta playtests (I forget the special name they give them), but around that time is when I started to realize the state they had left ES2 in. 

As far as I know, at least Endless Legend is still free of game-ruining bugs. So there is one game of theirs I know I can enjoy.

Genuinely curious. What game ruining bugs?
I have played Endless Space 2 on and off again and not seen anything, so I am curious what I have been missing :P

What if we took the concepts of planet building in Endless legend which then expands to the solar system which leads to the next. I already play EL and ES2 kind of in my cannon I suppose. Would just be a neat concept having to be a minor faction that becomes an empire over time and luck.

Two "simple" things not regarded to the game itself.

- Better (Community)Bug-Tracking, Management and Fixing of Issues then in ES2 and Humankind. I just stumbled uppon propper Humankind bug reports in the forum, not even getting an "acknowledged" answer after three years and still in the game (fixing them is another thing).

- No FOMO. No, not even cosmetic stuff. If i want to play the game on release and then one year later, I don't want to miss not even the tiniest of a cosmetic banner. This is not a MOBA or MMORPG where that is one of the key elements to bind players. At least it works the opposite on myself.