I'm not a complete expert in these things, though I thought it might be potentially interesting.

Bluespace Artillery, from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen weapon.
An energy weapon that fires artillery using Bluespace, an adjacent dimension. Effectively, teleporting a concentrated beam to a target.
Would probably carry vastly high range, and be limited to L or larger sized slots.
Would probably require heavy research related to wormholes(Maybe that experimental subspace navigation tech?) or jump technology, as well as sufficient laser/energy weapon research.

Supermatter Engine, also from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen equivalent to a Reactor.
A type of Engine, responsible for generating high levels of energy, using a Supermatter Shard and its reactions with directed lasers and baryonic matter.
A decent amount of energy generation for being as dangerous as a literal nuclear warhead. Could be a Ship Reactor, as well as a planetary/space station building.
Would probably require Rare Crystals, sufficient research with laser based weapons and possibly wormhole related tech, as Supermatter is otherworldly, like Bluespace.

Ablative Armour, again from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen form of armour.
A type of armour whose purpose is to instead mimic shields.
The armour is intended to be able to deflect or stop lasers/directed energy weapons.
In Stellaris, Lasers are effective against Armour, while Coilguns are effective against Shields, this armour type would provide minimal Armour, and instead mostly provide Shields. However it wouldn't have any shield regeneration, similar to of course, armour.
Likely able to be obtained after several research techs into the Armour path, an early game alloy cost variant to shields.

Bluespace Teleportation and Tunneling, once more from the SS13 Franchise, Nanotrasen related technology.
Merely, the ability to cross space without moving through space. As that movement was instead done through Bluespace.
Honestly, the more complicated to implement. In reality, it is basically the equivalent to using wormholes. Though for in game, it might be implemented similarly to shorter ranged jump drives. They could receive a bonus to jump range from a space station specific building.
Likely would require wormhole related tech(And/or experimental subspace navigation?)

I'm somewhat doubting that I was sufficient in explaining these. Though I still do think they may be interesting.

Originally posted by Mr.Mart36:

I'm not a complete expert in these things, though I thought it might be potentially interesting.

Bluespace Artillery, from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen weapon.
An energy weapon that fires artillery using Bluespace, an adjacent dimension. Effectively, teleporting a concentrated beam to a target.
Would probably carry vastly high range, and be limited to L or larger sized slots.
Would probably require heavy research related to wormholes(Maybe that experimental subspace navigation tech?) or jump technology, as well as sufficient laser/energy weapon research.

Supermatter Engine, also from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen equivalent to a Reactor.
A type of Engine, responsible for generating high levels of energy, using a Supermatter Shard and its reactions with directed lasers and baryonic matter.
A decent amount of energy generation for being as dangerous as a literal nuclear warhead. Could be a Ship Reactor, as well as a planetary/space station building.
Would probably require Rare Crystals, sufficient research with laser based weapons and possibly wormhole related tech, as Supermatter is otherworldly, like Bluespace.

Ablative Armour, again from the SS13 Franchise, a Nanotrasen form of armour.
A type of armour whose purpose is to instead mimic shields.
The armour is intended to be able to deflect or stop lasers/directed energy weapons.
In Stellaris, Lasers are effective against Armour, while Coilguns are effective against Shields, this armour type would provide minimal Armour, and instead mostly provide Shields. However it wouldn't have any shield regeneration, similar to of course, armour.
Likely able to be obtained after several research techs into the Armour path, an early game alloy cost variant to shields.

Bluespace Teleportation and Tunneling, once more from the SS13 Franchise, Nanotrasen related technology.
Merely, the ability to cross space without moving through space. As that movement was instead done through Bluespace.
Honestly, the more complicated to implement. In reality, it is basically the equivalent to using wormholes. Though for in game, it might be implemented similarly to shorter ranged jump drives. They could receive a bonus to jump range from a space station specific building.
Likely would require wormhole related tech(And/or experimental subspace navigation?)

I'm somewhat doubting that I was sufficient in explaining these. Though I still do think they may be interesting.

Your idea for Ablative Armour is actually pretty clever, I had been considering adding these from day one in some way due to their on-screen development in Star Trek, but couldn't think of a way to make them stand out that wasn't just 'even more armour'. I'll definitely be looking into including them in the future in some form.

As for the other ideas:
Bluespace Artillery - Although mechanically the concept is sound, I'm not sure I can do the weapon justice themewise with my current knowledge on modifying the visual effects of weapon fire. I will try some variations to see, but it's likely I'll go with a more conventional alternative from another franchise.
Supermatter Engine - I've got plans to add a unique building with high energy output high risk, but will have to look into event trigger conditions to see if I can play about with this concept for applying to ships and/or stations.
Bluespace Teleportation and Tunneling - This one is interesting, it has potential as a jump drive that is unlocked much earlier in the game but has a significantly reduced performance, although I don't think I can make it so they receive a bonus to jump range from a space station specific building. Sadly the old warp and wormhole functionality was completely stripped from the game.

You know, I'm a bit surprised. A welcome surprise, though. Continuing off the chain of SS13, Nanotrasen ideas, here is another set.

Bluespace Telecommunication Servers.
Which is, essentially, teleporting radiowaves through bluespace, to and from intended targets.
This probably wouldn't affect sensor ranges, it'd be more along the lines of improving administrative capacity, in addition to providing some encryption, as the radiowaves can literally no longer be intercepted without also having Bluespace related tech. The tech itself could just add 1 encryption, perhaps?
Would probably be a space station unique building, but could also be a planetary building as well.

Another, is Plasteel (Not the vanilla version.)
In SS13, there is always a focus on 'Plasma' (A unique gaseous molecule with unique interactions)
One such use is Plasteel, an alloy of Plasma and Steel.
Effectively heavily reinforced steel, but without the added costs of more intensive production methods. Would be a Mid tier armor tech that slightly underperforms, but also cheaper than other mid tier armor options.
Could be made from a lot less minerals/alloys, and a small amount of Exotic Gases.

Continuing from Plasteel, there is also Plastitanium, a general improvement over Plasteel.
Effectively just an alloy with, again, Plasma, and Titanium.
An armor that is just better overall stats than Plasteel, being closer to the latter end of Mid-tier armor technology, and with the focus of still being cheaper than said armor technologies.
Similiar to the above, a combination of minerals/alloys and a small amount of Exetic Gases.

Plasteel and more especially Plastitanium are more resistant to heat ontop of their general increased strengths. Therefore, I imagine they could add a small/tiny amount of non-regenerating shield ontop of their less-than-average armor stats.

how about battlemech regiments from battletech? or since they are mechs maybe just mech lances or companies. have them be recruitable armies and such.
and also from battletech perhaps something like particle projector cannons (PPC's)
i can probably come up with more over time but a lot of battletech stuff is already in there.
another idea was to draw from gundam and have "Mech Squadrons" available to equip to your carriers as a type of fightercraft.
basically. add more mechs XD

Originally posted by Mr.Mart36:

You know, I'm a bit surprised. A welcome surprise, though. Continuing off the chain of SS13, Nanotrasen ideas, here is another set.

Bluespace Telecommunication Servers.
Which is, essentially, teleporting radiowaves through bluespace, to and from intended targets.
This probably wouldn't affect sensor ranges, it'd be more along the lines of improving administrative capacity, in addition to providing some encryption, as the radiowaves can literally no longer be intercepted without also having Bluespace related tech. The tech itself could just add 1 encryption, perhaps?
Would probably be a space station unique building, but could also be a planetary building as well.

Another, is Plasteel (Not the vanilla version.)
In SS13, there is always a focus on 'Plasma' (A unique gaseous molecule with unique interactions)
One such use is Plasteel, an alloy of Plasma and Steel.
Effectively heavily reinforced steel, but without the added costs of more intensive production methods. Would be a Mid tier armor tech that slightly underperforms, but also cheaper than other mid tier armor options.
Could be made from a lot less minerals/alloys, and a small amount of Exotic Gases.

Continuing from Plasteel, there is also Plastitanium, a general improvement over Plasteel.
Effectively just an alloy with, again, Plasma, and Titanium.
An armor that is just better overall stats than Plasteel, being closer to the latter end of Mid-tier armor technology, and with the focus of still being cheaper than said armor technologies.
Similiar to the above, a combination of minerals/alloys and a small amount of Exetic Gases.

Plasteel and more especially Plastitanium are more resistant to heat ontop of their general increased strengths. Therefore, I imagine they could add a small/tiny amount of non-regenerating shield ontop of their less-than-average armor stats.

The Telecommunication starbase building is a solid idea, but I'll probably withhold it for now until the 3.3 update drops because that's completely altering how sprawl works, I have added it to my absolutely-will-do list once the update is out.
But since there is already a Plasteel in the game I'll just roll those ideas into the Ablative tech-line as various versions of it.

Originally posted by Nikolajgs:

how about battlemech regiments from battletech? or since they are mechs maybe just mech lances or companies. have them be recruitable armies and such.
and also from battletech perhaps something like particle projector cannons (PPC's)
i can probably come up with more over time but a lot of battletech stuff is already in there.
another idea was to draw from gundam and have "Mech Squadrons" available to equip to your carriers as a type of fightercraft.
basically. add more mechs XD

I do love mechs, and honestly it'd be great to include some stuff in that vein.
I'll take a look into how events are handled to perhaps add something like some mercenary groups wandering the galaxy you can hire.
And the PPC is my favourite weapon in the franchise, my only regret would be that I don't think I'd be able to implement it very well (specifically the helix around the beam) however making it a super-long-range sniper laser would be great.
As for mech squadrons you can use in hangars, the implementation of that would be harder... The first and easiest option would be to just rename and restat the existing fighters, but it won't feel very mecha. The second option would be to get some custom models, but that's something I can't really do, the workaround would be to make those mechs a human exclusive tech and taking the model from an existing mod.

I was thinking for a while. How about new Army Types?
Things like, atmospheric fighters, atmospheric bombers, atmospheric cruisers.

Fighters having high health (Representing the idea of them being hard to effectively destroy due to agility)
But low damage (Due to only being lightly armed in general, probably even less than average infantry, perhaps)
The cheapest of the three. Would probably require strikecraft tech.

Bombers being less health (Still probably more than the average infantry soldier)
But much higher damage (And probably higher collateral as well)
Probably a increased cost over fighters. Would likely require strikecraft tech and specific bomb/torpedo related techs.

And of course the atmospheric cruiser.
High health, high damage, and all around expensive.
No drawbacks other than much higher production cost and maintenance costs. Probably require the cruiser tech.

And then, ontop of that, robotic versions as well.
The robotic versions merely having slightly increased stats, immunity to morale damage, and increased credits maintenance costs.

I would honestly like the idea of atmospheric craft, as it would add extra uses from strikecraft up until cruisers become unlocked.

How about some ideas from The Lost Fleet by J.Campbell?
In the books there are 2 factions (Syndicate Worlds and The Alliance) fighting against eachother throughout 100-years long war.

Let's take a closer look at the Hypernet Gates.
While kind of similar to our current Gateways but at the same time they are different.

Hypernet creates a 'bubble universe' that contains the ships. The ships are surrounded by absolute darkness when in the 'bubble universe', and there is no way known for ships within it to communicate with each other, unlike Jump-space. The ships traveling through the hypernet do not actually move through space, but enter at one gate and then appear directly at another gate. However, if a gate is destroyed while ships are in transit, the ships may (according to the most popular theory in the books) reappear in normal space some distance between the two gates, or be potentially destroyed.

Interestingly, the larger the distance between the two points in known space, the smaller the travel time through the hypernet. From these descriptions, the hypernet seems to share ideas with the folded spacetime theories.

The gates themselves are constructed out of tethers that hold the hypernet energy matrix in place. Upon collapsing enough number of tethers, the structure can be collapsed. Different sequences of collapse can lead to energy releases ranging between absolutely nothing to the equivalent of a star going nova, enough to destroy an entire star system and possibly nearby systems also.

A Hypernet gate is activated by a Hypernet key, which contains an encrypted matrix that correlates to the matrix within the Hypernet gate. When the key is activated, these matricies merge, which allows the creation of the 'bubble universe'.

Each Hypernet system has a unique access code that is preset on its construction, meaning that if a key is stolen, the code cannot be changed to prevent its use without destroying the entire network. However, there seems to be a way to deactivate/edit the accessible gates on the Hypernet, as such an occurance prevents the Alliance First Fleet from leaving Midway via the Hypernet, and Unity Alternate's Hypernet gate is not accessible via normal methods. Although it appears both the Alliance and Syndicate have the capability to block or limit Hypernet access it is not explained as of yet how it was accomplished.

To make matters crazier there is also alien race who leaked humanity the hypernet technoology as a Trojan Horse. When one side started winning, they remotely collapsed gates at probable destination of one of the fleets, causing a nova-scale blast.

To sum up, we can have several technologies that are tied to the gates.
There can be tech that gives us copies of our own key, tech that enables us to steal enemy key, tech that lets us collapse our own gates + 2 tech (one that allows to safely collapse them and another one that causes the nova-blast... ya know... pyrrhic victory and all that stuff), tech that allows us to collapse enemy gates remotely or by using our own ships +2 tech (same as above but i guess the blast is what we are going after~) and also tech that allows us to build "safety measure" on the gates, so either they cannot be collapsed or can be collapsed safely only. Oh, and tech for blocking hypernet locally or overall, so that nobody can use them to travel.
+ these gates should have economic bonus.

Originally posted by Mr.Mart36:

I was thinking for a while. How about new Army Types?
Things like, atmospheric fighters, atmospheric bombers, atmospheric cruisers.

Fighters having high health (Representing the idea of them being hard to effectively destroy due to agility)
But low damage (Due to only being lightly armed in general, probably even less than average infantry, perhaps)
The cheapest of the three. Would probably require strikecraft tech.

Bombers being less health (Still probably more than the average infantry soldier)
But much higher damage (And probably higher collateral as well)
Probably a increased cost over fighters. Would likely require strikecraft tech and specific bomb/torpedo related techs.

And of course the atmospheric cruiser.
High health, high damage, and all around expensive.
No drawbacks other than much higher production cost and maintenance costs. Probably require the cruiser tech.

And then, ontop of that, robotic versions as well.
The robotic versions merely having slightly increased stats, immunity to morale damage, and increased credits maintenance costs.

I would honestly like the idea of atmospheric craft, as it would add extra uses from strikecraft up until cruisers become unlocked.

I'm still looking into the potential of these ideas, as they are certainly good. It's just ground armies feel mostly inconsequential and it'll be a bit of an investment to do multiple of them. However, I did take your note that strike craft are a mostly unusable tech until later in the game despite how early it appears and come up with some concepts around that.

Although it's not combat related, I thought of a couple of offshoot techs based on it.

Originally posted by Anegel:

How about some ideas from The Lost Fleet by J.Campbell?
In the books there are 2 factions (Syndicate Worlds and The Alliance) fighting against eachother throughout 100-years long war.

Let's take a closer look at the Hypernet Gates.
While kind of similar to our current Gateways but at the same time they are different.

Hypernet creates a 'bubble universe' that contains the ships. The ships are surrounded by absolute darkness when in the 'bubble universe', and there is no way known for ships within it to communicate with each other, unlike Jump-space. The ships traveling through the hypernet do not actually move through space, but enter at one gate and then appear directly at another gate. However, if a gate is destroyed while ships are in transit, the ships may (according to the most popular theory in the books) reappear in normal space some distance between the two gates, or be potentially destroyed.

Interestingly, the larger the distance between the two points in known space, the smaller the travel time through the hypernet. From these descriptions, the hypernet seems to share ideas with the folded spacetime theories.

The gates themselves are constructed out of tethers that hold the hypernet energy matrix in place. Upon collapsing enough number of tethers, the structure can be collapsed. Different sequences of collapse can lead to energy releases ranging between absolutely nothing to the equivalent of a star going nova, enough to destroy an entire star system and possibly nearby systems also.

A Hypernet gate is activated by a Hypernet key, which contains an encrypted matrix that correlates to the matrix within the Hypernet gate. When the key is activated, these matricies merge, which allows the creation of the 'bubble universe'.

Each Hypernet system has a unique access code that is preset on its construction, meaning that if a key is stolen, the code cannot be changed to prevent its use without destroying the entire network. However, there seems to be a way to deactivate/edit the accessible gates on the Hypernet, as such an occurance prevents the Alliance First Fleet from leaving Midway via the Hypernet, and Unity Alternate's Hypernet gate is not accessible via normal methods. Although it appears both the Alliance and Syndicate have the capability to block or limit Hypernet access it is not explained as of yet how it was accomplished.

To make matters crazier there is also alien race who leaked humanity the hypernet technoology as a Trojan Horse. When one side started winning, they remotely collapsed gates at probable destination of one of the fleets, causing a nova-scale blast.

To sum up, we can have several technologies that are tied to the gates.
There can be tech that gives us copies of our own key, tech that enables us to steal enemy key, tech that lets us collapse our own gates + 2 tech (one that allows to safely collapse them and another one that causes the nova-blast... ya know... pyrrhic victory and all that stuff), tech that allows us to collapse enemy gates remotely or by using our own ships +2 tech (same as above but i guess the blast is what we are going after~) and also tech that allows us to build "safety measure" on the gates, so either they cannot be collapsed or can be collapsed safely only. Oh, and tech for blocking hypernet locally or overall, so that nobody can use them to travel.
+ these gates should have economic bonus.

Honestly this sounds far too excessive, with so many alternative movement methods already available such an elaborate system is overkill. There are already Gateways and L-Gates plus with the addition of the new Relays and Catapult there's no shortage of long distance fleet transport methods aside from Jump Drives. Although I like the novels I definitely don't feel like they blend well with Stellaris, other than the core scifi elements the game already includes. Although it has been a while since I read so there might be some techs I am overlooking.

Let alone my ability to mod being too undeveloped for such an undertaking.

Originally posted by Robinxen:

Honestly this sounds far too excessive, with so many alternative movement methods already available such an elaborate system is overkill. There are already Gateways and L-Gates plus with the addition of the new Relays and Catapult there's no shortage of long distance fleet transport methods aside from Jump Drives. Although I like the novels I definitely don't feel like they blend well with Stellaris, other than the core scifi elements the game already includes. Although it has been a while since I read so there might be some techs I am overlooking.

Let alone my ability to mod being too undeveloped for such an undertaking.

To be perfectly honest, I would be happy with just using the gates as extra nova bomb able to destroy the whole system XD Or something that would let player destroy the gateways of nearby empires for "scientific purposes" ^ ^

Have you looked at Orion's Arm for weapons ideas? The thunderbolt would be... interesting to pull off, but given the level of destruction it causes, it should be a late-game thing.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/5062fd4d7f5cb

Metric bombs could also be done, possibly as an upgrade from the colossus.

https://www.orionsarm.com/eg-article/49fe3e605d052

I saw a comment suggesting the addition of Star Wars Ion Cannons, and honestly I think it might be neat to have a basic/small selection of some Star Wars Weapons.

For Example, turbolasers. I was imagining somewhat high firerate, mediocre tracking, and somewhat low accuracy, as well as surprisingly slow projectile speed. But around perhaps dealing 50% additional damage against armor and hull, but almost no damage against shields.

And then Ion Cannons, somewhat balanced firerate, mediocre tracking, and better accuracy than the turbolasers, with an also better projectile speed. As well as probably dealing perhaps between 100% and 150% bonus damage on shields, but effectively none at all on armor, and perhaps only a small amount of damage to hull.

There was also of course, Proton Torpedoes. Rather slow firerate, low tracking, accuracy and projectile speed, making it only useful on slow, sluggish targets. Bypassed shields and seemed to deal incredible damage to hull, and probably decent enough damage to armor.

And Concussion Missiles. Much more viable firerate than Proton Torpedoes, decent tracking and accuracy, though seemingly about just as fast as the Proton Torpedoes. Also bypassed shields, however dealt much less damage. Would probably be quite effective against fighters though.

Another Star Wars weapon I recall, are the Mass Drivers (From Empire at War: Forces of Corruption, is where I remember them being used.)
They seemed to me, to deal surprisingly low damage, despite having a fairly high firerate and high projectile velocity. Though their most notable feature is complete bypass of shields.

I might assume these weapons might require Exotic Gases (As a substitute for tibanna gas) With the exception of the Proton Torpedoes, Concussion Missiles, and the Mass Drivers.

I believe probes should perform an automatic exploration role similar to science ships. They should have the ability to detect hyperlanes, celestial bodies and spaceships but not survey anything. I'm not sure if that is actually possible in the game's current state.

This would be perfect to get a layout of the surrounding galaxy so the player can decide where to survey. Time is money in the early game, so you want science ships to focus on systems that might be tactically advantageous (chokepoints, wormholes, gateways) so that no AI empires can block them before you can expand there

Originally posted by rayden_solo:

I believe probes should perform an automatic exploration role similar to science ships. They should have the ability to detect hyperlanes, celestial bodies and spaceships but not survey anything. I'm not sure if that is actually possible in the game's current state.

This would be perfect to get a layout of the surrounding galaxy so the player can decide where to survey. Time is money in the early game, so you want science ships to focus on systems that might be tactically advantageous (chokepoints, wormholes, gateways) so that no AI empires can block them before you can expand there

I did at one point test out making them a science ship with a massive debuff to survey speed but that failed immediately. First they needed a scientist to go into automatic survey, which defeats their purpose as being a cheap way to scout. And secondly if you set them to automatic survey they'd still try to survey... incredibly slowly.

The game itself also requires a manned ship to go to unexplored systems. To even think about trying to fix those issues would mean overwriting based rules of the game, which can lead to serious mod compatibility issues.

So sadly probes have to fit a manual role. They do have a +1 sensor range modifier, which means they're perfect for sending to your border and seeing one system ahead, and repeating that process will let you scout ahead in advance.