This was touched on a while ago but I think it's worth bringing up again
The recent alert message addition is very very cool, but there are many times when a more personal message is needed. This is a social network game, let's be social! I would LOVE to see a "message" or "wall" tab on a player info window, where we could type something for anyone viewing to see. (4 tabs instead of the 3 we have now, Stats/ship/actions/messages.) It opens up options for diplomacy, trade, apologies, and healthy trash-talk. Examples:
To an ally: "I disabled that ship you alerted, have a ball"
To an enemy: "That's what you get for hacking me"
To my own: "I need Exotic Matter, I'll send 2 Hydium for each one"
To an ally: "Thanks for helping guard my homeworld, which of these artifacts would you like as a reward?"
To an enemy: "Nothing personal, you were posted by my legion"
To my own: "I'm a proud member of the Fluff Nugget Overlords Clan"
The down side is the potential for verbal harassment and such, so an addition would need to be added to the game terms for harassment/obscenity. But still, in every game I've seen with public player walls, this has not really been a problem. Each player should be able to delete their own messages, as well as any message on their own wall. Many games have added a cost to post a message, to limit it - for example it might cost us 5 energy, or even put it on a timer, similar to alerts.
