3) a Refueling tech so that ships do not refuel at start and fuel tanks become more important
Why do you think this is a good idea? Its benefits are not obvious.
1) It slows down exploration - with the current situation, one can explore a standard 60-star galaxy in 20-30 turns even without researching better sensor techs. Exploring a 100 star galaxy takes maybe 10 turns more and then the scout ships become useless.
2) It makes fuel tanks more important - if you want to explore farther than x jumps from your colonies, you need to research them.
3) It forces you to colonize, in order to be able to explore further.
/All in all, this would be like the limits in MoO1, just a lot more clear in view and in working (the display in MoO1 annoys the heck out of me, 4 parsecs and 5 parsecs and 6 parsecs look equidistant on the screen)/
Speaking of, I believe giving people outpost ships right at the beginning makes colony ships a little obsolete. Why build them if you can build outposts a lot faster?
What do you think of the tech mockups and the specials I posted above? The specials should be okay, they just need some placeholder icons...