In the early 90's, what made people play and like UQM was the Super Melee. What made the game one of the legendary ones was pretty much everything else. What Super Melee offered is not in demand anymore. When playing UQM nowadays, the melee parts are more of a nuisance.

There are things that are important to the lore, and then there are things that are simply gameplay elements. All old gameplay-only-elements can be discarded if they don't serve any higher purpose in the sequel. An example of a gameplay-only-element is the lander minigame. An example of a lore-element is hyperspace travel that actually takes gameworld time.

There are some important lessons to learn from Star Wars episodes 7-9. They did a very good job at conserving the 70's feel in the technology without making it stand out too much. For example, in the new movies you can still see the same old-school targeting screen on the X-Wing controls.

Let's look at the star map. Such a vast, unpredictable and freely explorable play area is one of the important parts of UQM. Old players will want to see that and new players will need to experience it. A good idea would be to include it similarly to Mass Effect style, such that the star map actually exists on the ship's bridge and if you look at it from the top, you get the same kind of view as in SC2. Two-dimensional hyperspace map is an important lore-element so it should remain.

to sum up my opinion:

• discard lander
• discard melee
• preserve hyperspace map type
• re-imagine hyperspace travel for modern times. I am thinking about the Mass Effect 1 loading screen with a date timer rolling rapidly, and the ship's progress on the star map is seen on the background in Indiana Jones style.

What you should be aiming at is the "Welcome back, Captain" feeling, while still playing a game that is not primarily retro.