Boarders

And even when they are just passing through, they can always change their minds in the way.

Otherwise no, no borders. But you can try to detect them early, by having sensor drones at the limits of your territory. Building eyes of the universe helps a lot too.
I think it makes for a more interesting game. In one of mine, I didn't get the eyes of the universe so I put in place a detection grid. Well, the AI isn't stupid: thier ships went around it, staying just outside sensor range. And then attacked (from nowhere apparently) one of my core worlds! I was amazed. So if you do it, make sure it is tight. And move them from time to time, a few parsecs, so the AI doesn't know where it is anymore.

You must also place your own fleets carefully so they can cover the more space possible
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I like the idea of visible empire borders. Maybe they dont have to have a specific function other then to just section off your controlled space.

What is your definition of "controlled space"? For now, Glaciv as the equivalent of cultural border: the influence.

I tend to put these in even if I do have the Eyes of the Universe. A sensor drone in a corner of every other sector gives full overlapping coverage, also if I get attacked the AI seems to waste a few turns trashing the sensors, which gives me time to muster my forces where they're needed and to step up military production.
I tend to play on the smaller maps (8x8 or 12x12) so I don't need a huge number of drones, but I guess with larger maps you could have more planets churning out drones until the grid is complete.

What is your definition of "controlled space"? For now, Glaciv as the equivalent of cultural border: the influence.

I think what is more key to this is the idea of trespassing. Borders would be set by the influence generally, but then having ships go through the controlled space would be a "nono". Atleast that's how Civ3 did it (which was referenced). The influence system is not set up to accomidate such things as tresspassing because first off, systems tend to drift into the influence of other civs blowing the whole idea out of the water. Secondly, there are only a limited number of places you can settle unlike earth based civ games. Being unable to pass through certain space would be crippling to those who don't happen to be on the edge of inhabitence, and a vast boon to those that are.
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Except that if you had influence set borders then a lot of civs wouldn't be move ships out of their home systems (including all minors). Nobody can really claim to own deep space anyway since nobody lives there and facilities such as starbases only cover a tiny amount of space. If I had my way sector ownership would go along with cultural defection.

For those that haven't played Civ3 or other games that deal with influence based borders, the beginning of the game is spent (this applies for AI as well) spreading yourself out as much as you can. When you settle a city you get a small blob of influence that spreads over time. As these blobs spread borders form, you generally aren't allowed across the borders of other civs and they aren't allowed across yours. In here, the spread would occour and eventually all of space (even deepspace) would be under someone's controll, but like I said before, anyone between the majority of civs and wide open (prime to inhabit) systems would have a large advantage.

As for cultural defection going with sector ownership, how would that work? Can more than one race settle in a sector? If so, who owns it? If not, how do you know if you're in trouble of it defecting without constantly checking the influence in the sector?

I like the border mechanic, but it only really works in games where you can settle, largly, anywhere you want. With the case that you can only settle in star systems and where influence goes by sectors and not shifting lines dependent on where you've settled and influence wars it all breaks down.

Borders would be difficult to program; but some other ideas would be to claim your own territory like nations do now, the same plot of land could be calimed by more than one nation causing border wars. diplomacy and military might would play a part in how much space to cliam. You could have planets in other peoples' space, if it was an ally it would be ok, but if in an enemy controlled space it might have a moral penatly, or have to pay some sort of rent. territorys could have settings like give allies permision to explore your space, limiiting foreign ships to a certain number or class, or letting some people fly warships through to attack someone on another side, letting trade ships go through or not. there could be neutral zones in between terriotires also where anything goes. If some has cloakiing or superior pilot skills or knowledge of poorly surveyed space, smuggling or hiding out could be done in enemy space.
It could change the whole complex of the game, depending on how important these changes are in the code. I would not want it to make the game take longer to play though, but it could be a lot of fun.

Dirt Craver out.
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I see two aspects:
- first the Influence.
- Second Boarders.
In CIV 3 you had a mix of both. However i'd like to see both aspects apart. I think that boarders are important for diplomacy. You would be warned when a ship trespass your boarders and you would also know that, if you trespass the boarders of someone else you may create an incident.
In GalCiv 2 i would see the influence as is in GalCiv (On the small Map). And Boarders on the main map (maybe fix boarders around each planet...just like in the sea...a certain distance around a planet would be the limit.)

Just an idea, mostly elaborating on Pascal. Use the influence numbers of systems to give a boarder radius, kinda like culture in CivIII. Say a 1-20 influence star has one radai "no trespassing" influence, so you can declare war on those who pass. More influence, more range around the star. And leave map wide influence as is, so culture is not a part of it at all. This way you can own part of a sector. So in this case, population would determine your boarder.