[quote=@WilsonTurner]
A) First of all- this takes place in the Milky Way Galaxy, and the Andromeda galaxy. Humans are allowed, but there will be a maximum of three independent nations of man. No exceptions. 
B) Second of all- alien races must be balanced. No hyperintelligent brutes that are cunning, fast, and strong, and are quick learners. You can have something that may not necessarily be balanced, but they cannot be perfect. Make it realistic, not overpowered.
C) Third- I don't want any unreasonable actions. If you're human, then you'll likely do anything, but you'll still care about your power which comes from the people- so that means you'll have to be intelligent about this. No declaring war just cause. Declare war because you made a series of accidents that you 'prove' to be someone else's fault, without giving any way for realistic denial. That means politics in the like. So- be intelligent, be realistic, be reasonable. Personal disputes can be carried into the roleplay- you wanna kill someone cause they insulted you in OOC, fine, do whatever- but again, actually make a reason. A rebel group that's rising, perhaps. 

D) Ships will fall into traditional rolls, with exceptions for your race. For example, destroyers may have powerful weapons that are more of a special weapon than anything, while having agility, speed, and lighter armor. Battleships and dreadnoughts are heavy-hitting bullet sponges, that are slow brutes. Also be realistic with weaponry- Kinetic weaponry can be dodged, but firing at even higher-than-norm speeds (anti-capitalship railgun speeds being the norm) will take exponentially more energy and equipment. A destroyer will not have the ability to put a slug through an entire heavy ship. They will likely have better effectiveness on shields- while lasers and other instantaneous energy weapons would be less effective against shields, and more effective against armor. 

E) FTL will be limited. You can have quite a few types of FTL, sure, go ahead. But make them balanced. You will NOT have an FTL drive that can activate on a moment's notice without any traces to destination or location, or without any apparent cooldown or heat signature. The way I see it, an FTL drive will likely produce very high amounts of heat, while using a great deal of energy. There is a single alternative kind of FTL drive that I will allow, and it's far, FAR better than a normal FTL drive, but is far, FAR more limited, and must be learned from an NPC nation that I'll control. Think of the stuff near the end of The Xenocide by Orson Scott Card.

YOU are supposed to make a unique nation that is technologically and culturally advanced- or not. Most nations will have to be FTL-able, or close to it. I'll only allow maybe two nations that are still pre-FTL, such as the Nouvellians in one of the previous reboots, who were in a WWII-technological era (I think). I'll allow a nation like that for every four or five spaceworthy nations. 

Before I elaborate any more than I have already- is anyone interested?
Ships and fleets will not number in the thousands, or the hundreds, even. Rather, a very large fleet would be two dozen ships. Maybe in later stages, it'll get to the point where hundreds and thousands of ships are possible, but right now, I'd rather have people focus more on less kill-all strategy. 
nation, and you do whatever that nation does to advance itself. You can try to form an intergalactic coalition to try and build up political power, be the military-centric war machine, produce goods and ship them to whoever you can find, whatever. 

There will be an 'Ancient' race that is an NPC type thing- jump gates leading between the galaxies allow access between the Milky Way and Andromeda. Too far for a regular FTL drive to make, after all.
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Ehm, a number of these limitations and rules are actuallyless reasonable than you'd think. I list them:

Depending on how weapons scale with size and what's reasonable in the setting a destroyer can have as much firepower as a dreadnought...just with less rate of fire, less weapons and other functions sacrificed in order to get that one weapon. Sure, the Dreadnought can mout an even bigger weapon but would it worth it? 

Lasers are worse against armor than kinetic penetrators. There are literally orders of magnitudes of a difference, MJ range APFSDS projectile can take out tanks while MW-range lasers aren't even a realistic threat against that much armor (unlesss you are really patient). Although some kind of exotic energy weapon which induces a fission chain-reaction in the target is plausible, albeit it only work against a limited number of materials. actually, unless there's an unique quality to the shields both lasers and kinetic penetrators would strain them about the same. Although typical force fields are more likely to be penetrated by massive projectiles (because they have far more momentum for the same energy).

Dozens of ships barely makes sense for even a single-planet interstellar nation. Realistically given the astronomical distances and number of civilian ships to protect overall you MAY need thousands of ships. unless they can casually cross the galaxy. Or well, overall the number of ships would depend on how fast/convenient is your FTL and how large area they need to patrol. My Morteans with slow warp drives only able to cross a few lightyears a day needed literally thousands of frigates just to keep their 7 star systems covered. If a race could cover the same distance within seconds then they sure can allow to concentrate their forces far better.
Perhaps instead of number or size (baring the true extremes) an aggregate powerlevel should be measured. Having thousands of weak ships against dozens of superfast OP dreadnoughts would measure about the same.

Overall I like the intentions you have for a balanced game where people won't get to powerplay. Thoise are all good ideas and may prevent the inevitable decay of space NRPs we repeatedly experienced.
Depending on how my time allow it I could participate in this game, too.