So post your own game choices that you're friggin' glad IronClad decided NOT to go with. Let's have some fun with this thread.
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STUPID IDEA: Have all the orbital structures actually orbit the planet.
WHY IT'S STUPID: Your newly constructed capital ship, a lethal assembly of high technology and vengeance-driven crew, slowly exits the construction facility and gracefully moves into position. Suddenly a crystal asteroid comes along on its orbital path and smashes your gorgeous dreadnaught into considerably less appealing chunks of scrap metal.
ALSO WHY ITS STUPID: Enemy assault frigates spend hours chasing down orbital structures to kill them. Eventually, everyone just gives up and builds nothing but strikecraft carriers, siege frigates, and capital ships. Light frigate captains would commit suicide from boredom in droves.
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STUPID IDEA: Make the planets orbit the sun.
WHY IT'S STUPID: Picture this: you send your fleet off to tackle a planet that's on a different orbital path and orbiting the star at a different speed. As that planet moves, so does the phase lane, and in transit, suddenly your entire fleet finds itself passing directly through the heart of the sun. Ouchies.
ALSO WHY IT'S STUPID: The marijuana crowd would starve to death because they'd zoom out to where all the phaselanes around the star were visible, and then turn up the gamespeed and watch the lines and planets dance in psychedelic patterns until their eyeballs fell out. Then Jack Thompson, sensing another "cause", would create a class-action suit against Ironclad, thousands of gamers-with-munchies would jump on board, and the resulting legal defense fees would bankrupt StarDock.
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STUPID IDEA: Make the game true to scale.
WHY IT'S STUPID: Mouse scrollwheels would burst into flame and burn players' fingers, which would eventually fall off from overuse anyway.
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STUPID IDEA: An achievement where players have to win using only fighters or bombers.
WHY IT'S STUPID: Kinda hard to conquer a solar system when the only thing you can build is a planetary hangar. 
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More later.
-- Retro
