My (not so old (couple of months at most)) FS3 Wishlist
Volumetric Shading (nebulae, smoke, debris plumes, gas clouds, clouds)
Directional Lighting (floodlights, cone lighting)
Huge #s of destructible sub-models
3D beam cannons, primary shots, trails
Portal style warping (as in, you see into a 3D tunnel through a 2D hole) but looks like an actual tear in the space-time continuum
BF3 style launch sequence
FPS style briefings, walk-through-corridors possible
Animated pilots (particle hair)
Full armature animation
Shadows
Reflections
Refractions
Volumetric explosions
In-game mod interface, persistent pilots
Ejection and collection
Fully detailed cockpits with animated gauges and controls
Newtonian Physics available in-engine
AI collision detection (can fly through descent level corridors)
Fighter wings come through same portal
Gore (bodies spawned by ship explosion which hit your ship with a wet smack)
Capital ship windows
Lightning and arcing improvements, electric guns possible in-engine
Atmospheric missions, ground vehicles, destructible buildings and terrain
Seamless atmospheric to space transitions
Weapons behave differently in atmosphere (mushroom clouds)
Co-op, Deathmatch, CTF, payload, objective race, superfighter V all, control points, high-speed racing - voice over internet available
Scoping
Vulnerable cockpits (headshot)
Recoil
Melee weapons, can specify a damaging region which hurts more than a flat surface
Buzz droids (SWIII)
Delta V available in-engine
Manoeuvrable thrusters and even engines (you know how the engines rotate on (the) firefly)
Moving firepoints
Glancing collisions can break stuff of your ship and/or send you spinning
Glow mapped guns which "warm up" before shots can be fired
Glowing debris which cool over time, not target-able with Y
B selects bombers, shift-B selects bombs
Developer console, no points for a mission after cheats enabled
Precision strikes on ships to aid boarders
Atmospheric terrain - Craters, volcanoes, earthquakes, waves, tsunamis, trees, landslides, wildlife, waterways, foliage, beach, swell, infrastructure, cities
Scripted explosion propagation possible (imagine explosions following a gas line)
(self) Death animations dependent on killing blow
Selected turrets give tabled name, not just "laser turret"
Debris clouds - volumetric ash and dust, increased particle (those fly-by little rock pictures) count, contain bits and pieces of ships, debris, and some spawn bodies
Ship dirtification - explosions, thrusters, dust and body impacts leave persistant gunk on your ship
Can shut down your engines to hide
Additive velocity (bombs keep your momentum)
Flickering lighting
Lose sound on non-lethal cockpit shot, betraying the fact sound was merely a simulation based on environmental conditions
Underwater mechanics (slow, bubbles, gloomy, current, pressure)
Air mechanics (updraughts, vortices, wind, turbulence, friction, lift)
Black outs or death at too great acceleration/deceleration
Dynamic planets (sunrise effect)
Background baked from real 3D star-scape
Flare looking counter-measures
Shattering, shearing, blasting, burning, crumbling, snapping, bending, flexing, vaporising, melting, denting, cutting, plasma-ify-ing (ionising?), punching, breaking
Everything already do-able in FSOpen
