I was thinking, to add some colour into the game, why not have energy ports in nebulas? Ore ports in asteroid fields?

Not only could this play a good role in increasing graphics, it could also play a role in combat, trading, etc.

Example:

Asteroid Field: 25% decrease of damage for defender, since the battle field is full of rocks floating in space.
Nebula: Immediate max of energy if travelling within nebula, Beam weapons are obsolete.

It would add some color into the game, but I don't know about messing with other stuff. Maybe you could do a little, but I wouldn't make it a very large part of the game, just becaue it would complecate things too much.

The reason you don't see much color is ebcause we tried to keep the bandwidth low. If you want to see alot of color use the Paged Classic template. That has full background graphics absed upon the arm of the galaxy you are in at the time.

I like where your idea is going

Colonist Ports only reside in wide open space so attackers get +10% attack power as there is no where for the defender to run and hide.
Goods ports have HEAVY space traffic... 25% chance of not getting getting a warp trail signature from this sector due to way to many warp trails intersecting and overlapping.
Organics ports, well... these guys are huffing on some serious "natural herbs" *wink wink* 50% chance of getting bad sensor readout.

If you want more color, and energy port in nebula, you make another picture for energy port and not large background picture. It would be better.
And maybe if you want percantages, so it's should be fluctuating - every port another value.

But, maybe good idea for upgrade of ports, but not with this {wide open space so attackers get +10% attack power, ...}

I like the idea of asteroid belts and nebula's. Not exactly for the aforementioned reasons, although Kwae Zar has nice ideas. I would like to expand that to having a new ship class of Miner. You can mine the space dust for precious metals and gems for trading at ports. I think Kwae Zar has had a post about this before. It would be another way to get people out in real space to get attacked <G>.

That is a good idea Bloodhound had. It would add another dimension to the game.