Artifact search on Planets must get cheaper or must be changed a little bit
Agreed; planetary exploration is currently only worthwhile for Advent with a large number of planets (due to that nifty discount). One simple approach may be to increase the likelihood of a planetary bonus, and get rid of the chance to uncover high security protocol (such a horrible effect). If there was a greater chance of getting a consolation prize, it might actually be worthwhile.
Upkeep changes with the ships you have and not the ships you could have. After a devasting defeat you could get more res to build new fleets, since youre upkeep went down.
The whole point is that it gets harder and harder to spring back as fleets get larger. It's already very difficult to break the bank for mature late-game economies, and if upkeep was reduced every time they took casualties it would be effectively impossible. This mechanic is designed to help end long and stagnated games by attrition where neither side can get a decisive military lead. Without it, there would be too many games that would end in stalemate.
So, I totally disagree.
Upkeep changes with the planets you have based on the maximum planets you could get in a game.
Upkeep is percentage based. I don't see any reason to change this based on map sizes.
Points you spend for upgrading plantes and ships
There is already a plan for 4 ability levels and 2 levels for your capstone abilities. Personally, I'm worried it will be a lot of developer time and effort that doesn't change anything. People already tend to specialize capital ships with one primary ability, and mostly ignore secondary and tertiary abilities unless they're passive.
In practice, we need the opposite of this: something to encourage diversity. There's already a huge benefit to specialization, and if anything we need something to encourage people to do something else.
But you can upgrade a planet to a breeding place for you empire and have much more ppl living on it or you upgrade it so that you can build a few more civillian or military stations....
I don't see a need for this. We already have planetary upgrades and lots of options for logistics utilization. For smaller empires, planets are usually left with a minimum development level and a focus on expansion is paramount, so this feature wouldn't be used. For larger empires, the goal is on uniform high productivity layouts across most worlds, with only a few exceptions closer to the front-lines. I don't really see this adding anything meaningful to the game.
