I grew up with Star Control 2. It was the first game my brother and I played on our 386 (We had an Apple II before that). We played super melee for countless hours, and of course the story mode was amazing too. It was a game that likely inspired both of us to become software developers (my brother even works in the games industry).

There are so many reboots of classic games these days, and I've been wanting one done for SC2.. But it is scary at the same time. A lot of these games get broken by "new & better ideas" of a new generation that don't appreciate the same things we did back then. Take a look at the newest SimCity. While it seems to have a decent following, the user ratings are abysmal, and from what I can tell, that's mostly the people that liked the originals, and too much was changed in the reboot. X-Com on the other hand, I personally think they did a great job of the reboot. They improved the right things (my opinion) and didn't completely change the feel of the game.

So anyways, please don't try to "revamp" too much. SC2 was awesome, and it doesn't need a lot of changing for a reboot. Better graphics, sure. Online super melee for multiplayer. I don't see the need to go all 3D.. That's one of the things that SC3 did that was a fail.

Things that were great about SC2:

• Diversity and balance of ships. Sometimes the seemingly weakest ships could still take out the most powerful. For example, I once managed to take out my brother's Chmmr with a Supox. Or the time my bro managed to take out several of my ships (including an Ur-Quan) with his Pkunk as he kept getting rezzed over and over and over.
• Exploration - Scanning planets for minerals, biologicals, and energy and then going to collect what you'd discovered. Sadly it became mostly unnecessary later in the game. But this was always an exciting part for me.
• Upgrading the main ship. It's always cool to get those upgrades you worked for, and see the improvement to your ship. It kind of made late game fights pretty unbalanced though..
• The story, filled with strange and ridiculous alien characters. The Spathi, Umgah, Pkunk, Thraddash, and of course who could forget the Utwig and their precious Ultron.
• Love the music style and implementation.

Things that could be changed/improved (IMO):

• Graphics, although I don't think this game would benefit from a full or even partial 3D camera mode (this sucked in SC3). Top down worked just great. You could model and render the ships in 3D, but just keep the camera on top view.
• Multiplayer. I'm unlikely to play at a single keyboard with anyone else anymore. So while you could still do that, I'd also enjoy an online super melee mode so I could play over the internet with my brother. I suppose it could be interesting to see more than 2 person arena battles too. Free for all, or teams.
• Story mode replay-ability. Would be interesting if there were multiple paths and multiple endings to the game depending on which aliens you interact with and which quests you do/do not complete. Depends on the available budget of course, but I'm getting sort of tired of the linear (or even branched) story lines of games that all lead you to the same destination no matter what you do.
• Exploration. The original was cool, but more could be done to make exploration and collection of resources less like a mini-game, and a more important and valuable part of the entire story mode. Perhaps more upgrades for the landers? Different ship scanner upgrades for different mineral/biological specimens? More interesting "hunting" of biologicals than just pew pew and they go in a box?
• More aliens, more ships. As long as they fit in the universe and story, more to play with would be fun I'm sure.
• Solid AI. Too many games lately spend far too little time on AI and then inevitably the reviews come out after game launch with, "The AI is stupid". How about we plan for AI to be more than an afterthought?
• Keep the community involved. Which is not to say design by committee. But, don't develop it in a black box and hope that people will like what comes out. Get feedback early so this isn't a flop. Perhaps also crowd funding is an option this way. See Star Citizen for a decent approach.

I can think up a few more ideas, but I don't want to water down what the original was, and this is lots for now I'm sure.

I hope this helps. Good luck, and please don't make another SC3.