Waypoints
The ability to place attack and move orders in the same queue would be handy.
This is actually fairly unlikely, those systems are incredibly complex and trying to wed them together is going to create hassle in the targeting and waypoint evaluation logic, which I need to squeak all the efficiency I can out of. I had this on my list at one point, but it's off there now because I don't think the juice is worth the squeeze...
Ah, I appreciate that this may not be an efficient use of development time then. It's a small limitation not being able to queue up an attack on a target from a particular approach, or steer a gate raiding squadron of bombers around the AI's command posts before ordering them to attack the Warp Gate, but this really is only minor.
I would like to be able to set spacedock rally points to a specific point in another system, rather than having ships stop at that system's wormhole when they arrive.
That almost definitely won't happen, sorry! The ability to give those sort of cross-planet orders is something that is just generally against the design of the game. That's part of the disadvantage of reinforcements, is that they always enter at one certain place and require further action from the player. That makes it impossible to run full defenses of your entire system with just docks on one safe planet, and it makes it a bit less effective to trickle reinforcements into an enemy system. The way this currently is has strategic implications that I like, aside from the fact that I would simply have to recode the entire command structure for ships (as with the move/attack comingling) in order for that to work. It's something of a limitation of the engine at present, but I built the engine the way that I did because I didn't expect to ever want to do that sort of action (and I don't). Sorry. 
There's actually only one situation that comes up regularly where I'd like to do this - I'll explain it because I believe there might be a way of solving it.
Before I launch an attack on an AI planet I obviously queue up all my ships at the wormhole leading to the system in question. Now, my spacedocks may be one or two systems behind, so I set the waypoint on those to the system I am going to launch the attack from.
This leads to all those produced ships arriving in the system and remaining at the wormhole they entered from, and I have to manually order them to move to the wormhole I am going to launch the attack through.
My suggestion is thus;
I would like to be able to set a special move order/waypoint to another system that results in the ships stopping at the wormhole that will lead into the system.
This would allow me to order my ships to queue up at the wormhole I want to launch the attack from, rather than constantly ordering batches of them across the system.
Teleporting engineers ordered into free roaming defender mode at a point outside the gravity well will jump back and forth between the gravity well and that point indefinitely.
You are a sick, sick person, and need to seek professional help. And, good check of the corner case.
Indeed, my estranged doppelganger, I took great pleasure in watching my poor engineers trapped in a state of technological limbo.
The AI will futilely chase teleporting ships around the gravity well, allowing the player to stall the attacking AI ships indefinitely. I'd suggest that non-combat teleporting ships should be very low priority targets for the AI.
Sssh!!! I regularly use this tactic by using a single Engineer II to lure all the wandering AI ships away from my fleet and send them on a merry chase that they never can win...
By the Realms of Xdom! Such an underhanded tactic sullies a commander's honour. Which I why I too must stop using it so regularly, I don't think I have the strength of will to prevent myself exploiting this particular behaviour, so I am forced to call upon X The Great to put appropriate measures in place.
AI physical attack ships will not leave the protection of their force field even whilst being destroyed by ships such as infiltrators. I think they'd be better off venturing a short distance outside the field to fight back - it may expose them to fire from other ships but it still seems less wasteful than simply dying without inflicting any damage at all.
Can't they shoot out of a force field? I could swear my turrets do it all the time...
Ships can fire out of forcefields, but Cutlasses and Vampire Claws have no ranged weapons and will not leave their forcefield when under attack.
I'm moving away from the idea of a button to add all ship types to the build queue. While in certain end game situations this would save a small amount of time, I think X is right that the temptation for new players to use it rather than experimenting with different ship mixes would be too great.
