Right now the spoiler section is rather barren. Most people know about the spoiler races and their special technology (you can find it by selecting All Research Available in the research bar), so I thought I would start a poll.
Swarm: A space bug race that mines planets to create "eggs" in which to incubate ships. It has a total of three ships; queen, worker and soldier, but ironically uses numbers to kill.
Precursors: Strong ships that hang around planets and throw hoards of AMMs at you from PDCs. Their ships are normal size.
Invaders: Massively powerful alien race that has never passed the Trireme Tactic in naval warfare.
Some thoughts and ideas that I've heard from other people, as well as some I just thought of off the top of my head:
1) Develop the other systems first, before working more on the spoilers. This would mean developing the EW system further, working on crew, diplomacy, balancing weapons, large missiles vs small missiles, yada, yada, etc, etc.
2) Give the StarSwarm their own technology tree, with tech that is capturable. EX: Radiation protected organic soldiers, radiation spores, egg incubation, etc.
3) Develop the Precursors with their own computer technology, such as AI programs, quantum computers, Von Neumann Probes, Nanite Weapons, Matter/Energy Reclamators, etc.
4) Give the invaders a more varied set of ships. Make it appear like an actual invasion. Give them colliers, tankers, wormhole ships, massive base stars, etc. Maybe exotic technology such as plasma blooms, miniaturized plasma casters, etc.
5) The AI for the spoiler races should adapt to current situations. If you are sieging a wormhole, invaders will destroy the wormhole and create another in an easier to invade system. A Swarm should expand at a calculated pace and avoid the WW1 bee swarm tactics against targets billions of kilometres away. Precursors should stop wasting all their ammo against my 400 tonne scout ship.
6) If a spoiler race's default ship cannot fight an enemy without years of battle damage, then there should be some way to change the ship designs available. This should be limited to how the race operates. If the race is organic, than they would be limited in how much they can change. If their robots, they should be able to optimize their designs to fight better. If they are invaders, they are basically a race with a very secure industrial base.
7) Create another spoiler race to trip up the expert players as well as the novice ones. Maybe a race of cats that, while cute, will infect anyone that touches it with a parasite that explodes into a giant, maneating bug. *Whoops, wrong game*
If races cannot be adapted on the fly, then maybe having them be a little different at startup would work. Instead of 60,000 tonnes, it would be 32,000 tonnes and twice as fast. Instead of Missile Bases, it would be cloaked fighter bases. Instead of ramming targets, it would use particle beams at long range.
Poll
