Hi i made this thread because i am not sure if you are planning to visually represent the changes of the developement of colonies, therefore i want to suggest it. In Endless space 1 You could see more and more cities appearing and shining on the surface of your colonies as the population of the planets grew. You could also see space stations and space ships flying around it. While gameplay improvements are more important at this stage, i think it is also important to make the galaxy feel more alive. It would be great if we could see the same feature in Endless Space 2 maybe even in a bit more detail. Obviously you are not supposed to see a lot from space but larger cities and larger buildings could be made to appear as your planets keep developing. Maybe there could be some system improvements too that are visible on your planets like large industrial or scientific buildings, or change the appearance of the cities on the planet according to its planet specialisation. Make space ships fly around the planet too  especially if there is a trade bureau in that system to make the galaxy feel more alive. I think that small things like this could breathemore life in your game and it make it more satisfying when you manage to develop a highly advanced star system. Now im not sure if you are already planning to do this, probably you do but just to be safe i wanted to suggest this. I also understand that the priority now is to perfect gameplay, cosmetics are secondary. I only played 4 hours of this game so far, but its a huge improvement over ES1  and i really like the direction this game is going. Thanks for listening and keep up the good work!

I agree! I love the idea that the colonies would grow and the planets would change with that growth. I feel that it's the details such as these that really bring the immersion.

And the detail was in the first Endless Space 

This would work amazingly well with Cravers' depleted planets mechanic. The planet would graduallly turn to grey and cratered, underlining your faction's relentless exploitation.

Yes i like it very much in Endless Space 1 to see how the planets and empires are growing (visual). I hope you will use this feature in Endless Space 2 too.