At star-control.com, they have a PDF (Adobe Acrobat) of the original map, as well as some web-based maps. A project to unify these as an application would be a good idea.

[before]

About that smooth turning radius - I was at first under the impression that it was already there in the 3DO version... looks like it wasn't. I actually played SC3 before SC2 (never finished SC2, at that), and I thought the smooth turning radius was pretty cool. Again, I must stress that this should be there as an option. Implementing it using a texture would be a good idea, but does this work in unaccelerated SDL mode?

I would like to make another addition to multiplayer: An SC1ish strategy game would be cool. Including all of the specified improvements to multiplayer combat, and as many ships as can be cranked in there.

I've noticed this... what's the point in that? Doesn't really matter though, because customizable keys are on the way.

Hmm... I never had to disengage autopilot to leave hyperspace... using 0.1... a CVS bug?

First of all, these improvements should be split into single player and multiplayer categories. Also, this switch needs to be incorporated:
--emulate=[PC/3DO]
This switch would be a quick way to set the options just like a certain version - PC (MOD music, no speech, perhaps some other changes to make it more like the PC version) or 3DO (OGG music, speech). The rest of the switches would add to and/or override that switch. At the very least, this will quiet down all of the don't-change-a-thing advocates. Every other change to the game should be disabled by default but accessable through the commandline switches and, eventually, a config file (and an editor for it).
On to my suggestions:

In single player:
Hyperspace time compression, as mentioned, is important.
A twist on the journal idea: Have stars that were specified in conversations blink on the starmap, perhaps with some floating text to let you know their significance.
A conversation backlog, IRC style, would be nice.

In multiplayer:
Network play over TCP/IP, complete with a tournament mode, fraglimits, timelimits, and chat. If more than 2-player combat turns out to be feasible - Team Deathmatch and CTF. Hey, if it works in THPS, why not Star Control?
Smooth turning radius - optional, of course, as the lack of this provides a good defense mechanism. In network play, the server should obviously have control over this.
Extreme tweakability - Scorched Earth style. Gravity should be modifiable, for instance. Simple tweaking of ships - recharge rate (in all of its forms), crew complement, speed and maneuverability - should also be possible. All of these should be modifiable in-game, especially when creating a server.
Handicap system - if a newbie is playing against a veteran, the veteran should have less crew, energy, speed and maneuverability (or only part of those, selectable before the match) than the newbie. This can be done by boosting the newbie's stats, lowering the veteran's, or both.

Those are my ideas for now. It would be nice to see some of those make it in after the stable release.

[Specs:]

When I first tried the game out, I used OpenGL. I wanted to get some radioactives from Mercury, but to my horror the landing there caused the game to run at about 0.2 fps (that's right - one frame in 5 seconds), and become extremely unresponsive. Naturally, this means quick death on mercury. I tried it again on pluto, and the same problem was there. However, once I get the lander back up (couldn't steer well enough to hit the Spathi ship! ) the game went back to normal. Even the landing/takeoff animations for the lander were at a high framerate. This problem does not occur with space battles (at least in super melee - didn't get to check out the in-game battles with OpenGL).
Using SDL instead fixes this, but makes the average framerate slightly (and annoyingly) lower.

Specs:
Intel Pentium III 450mhz
Gentoo GNU/Linux using Gentoo Kernel 2.4.19-r7, compiled from source
uqm 0.1, downloaded as binaries
NVidia GLX & Kernel drivers 1.0.3123