Extra-Galactic Expeditions

[CaptainX3]

The Second Place winner of the Suggestion Contest, original description as follows:

There's Generally not a lot to do with your science ships and your exploration cruisers in the late game. In times of peace, instead of having them hang out assisting research, why not give them a new frontier to explore.

The Simplest way I can think of to do this would be a repeatable special project that they can undertake to leave known space and pioneer unknown space, the void between or even new galaxies and return with unique bonuses or special technologies. For example, perhaps this way players could unlock some of the special technology from leviathans or even unique parts for NSC Ships. You could also use a policy to turn the project off if its cluttering your UI.

I'm not sure how code intensive it could be, but possibly having exploration cruisers fitted with certain modules make success more likely.

It could also open up a new level of "Off the Board" play where these exploration ships could find resource deposits, alien pops, derelict vessels, unique technology, maybe even lost jump coordinates to powerful worlds that "just happen" to fall inside your territory ala precursor capitals. You could even add some new options to the endgame crises where you invade the crisis back with fleets of these ships acting as invasion vessels. This makes tall play more attractive, and wide play can benefit equally as much.