I was thinking about being able to rename planets then I thought, why not just be able to claim planets after a while? Maybe require a certain amount of exploration beforehand or a certain NPC population, but at some point you would unlock a territorial flag for each race and can place that on the planet to claim it. If you use this flag with "E" then it gives you an option to rename it. Any claimed planet then would somehow be marked in your star map and if you really wanted to get sophisticated you could tier the territorial flags based on planet development such as "Territory", "Outpost", "Settlement", "Colony" and higher tiers get certain bonuses (such as reduced fuel needed to travel to due to trade lanes or something). As you claim more worlds you can see your sphere of influence expanding across the star map. Another thought would be each tier allows a certain number of "Transport Beacons" on the planet. These would allow you to beam down to several different sites from your ship. Perhaps a rule for the tiers would be: Territory = Requires simply visiting the planet. No bonus but is marked on star map. Allows 1 Transport Beacon. Outpost = Requires exploring a certain percent of the surface planet (ie 10%). No bonus either but appears on the map. Allows 2 Transport Beacons. Settlement = Requires above and a certain amount of NPCs. Besides appearing on the map it takes 25% less fuel to reach. Allows 3 Transport Beacons. Colony = Requires the planet to have been fully circled (ie walked around) and even more NPC's than above. It takes 50% less fuel to reach and appears on the map. Allows 5 Transport Beacons. As far as the flags themselves you would have a variety of options. Maybe a loyalist or rebel flag for each race depending on how you want your character's backstory to go. Then a bunch of neutral flags such as trade unions, pirate guilds, etc that everyone would have access to. Perhaps NPCs could gain a faction variable that would determine if they will be hostile or friendly based on what flag you have adopted (ie if you are a loyalist Floran and encounter a bunch of rebel Florans). This could be quite an interesting addition in PvP by having each player take a faction! Besides territorial flags you could also place "Warning Flags" on planets. Maybe you visit a planet that is simply too tough for you, but you claim it for your empire and then place a warning flag saying "hey, this planet might be a little dangerous". Planets with a warning flag would have a different icon when they appear on the map. I just figured, hey, if the US can place a flag on the moon we should be able to place flags on our planets. And if some of the stuff is too complex then just give the option to place flags on a planet so we can rename them and have easier access in the star map.
With the recent update adding flags a lot of this has been added (at least aesthetically). I certainly don't think it would be difficult to add more flags based on the current ones so each race has a "loyalist" or "rebel" side plus a few others for trade guilds, etc. I'm curious how difficult it would be to mod in the other stuff. I'm waiting until the beta is over before I actually jump into modding since I expect a lot of the file structure will change. But it is giving me time to work on building sprite resources in the meanwhile.
