An Exploration Sector revamp is coming. Or so it is said. Nobody appears to know what exactly will happen, though. Let's come up with some ideas.
Here is one that just came to me when writing a reply regarding the Foundry:
Exploration Clusters are like "normal" Sector Blocks. 3 Sectors, lots of planets and stars and anomalies. But none of them have names (yet). Each Exploration Sector establishes 2-4 "non-canon" races that reside in it, plus 2-4 canon races that have bases there.
There are two ways to get missions there:
- Cryptic Created Missions. A revamped Genesis system creates the missions, that is at minimum able to avoid stupid missions like "Stop the Borg looking for artifacs of their 3rd dynasty."
- Player Created MIssions. The Foundry has the option to load in special resources for Exploration Sectors, adding NPC ships and contacts that fit the exploration sector.
- Players can collaborate (informally, but in the long term possibly with import/export functions in the Foundry) to create their own consist in-game canons (and possibly multiple, mutually exclusive ones).
For Cryptic's revamped Genisis system,I would advise something like this:
1) Give each race associated with a sector block certain keywords and tags.
For example:*
- Dentistry:
- Militaristic, Aggressive
- Smack Talker
- Religious (Monotheism)
- Democratic
- Precious Commodities: Warp Coils, Self-Sealing Stem Bolts, Terraforming Thingies (what are they called again?)
- Interests: Artifacts of their 3rd Dentistry, Hafnium-3
- Home World: Dent IV
Vetinistry:
- Peaceful, Defensive
- Long-Winded
- Spiritual
- Monarchy
- Precious Commodities: Self-Sealing Stem Bolts, Entertainment Provisions
- Interests: Teachings of the Great Ancestors, Decalithium Crystals
- Homeworld: Vent II
Gastroentristry:
- Militaristic, Defensive
- Atheistic
- Friendly
- Feudal
- Precious Commodoties: Warp Coils, Shield Generators
- Interests: Omega Particles, Ventini Roses.
- Homeworld: Gastro IIe
The Genesis system would use this when generating missions.
Determined Gastroenteryans will be the antagonists of this mission? Mission is "Enemy attacks colony for X?" then "X" will be replaced with "Omega Particles".
The lists are incomplete and depend on the mission types available. But basically, once the mission types are known, we need to identify the "fill-ins" that are race specific, and have each race an answer for them. The syste would be relatively easy to expand - if you add a new mission type, you can either use existing keywords, or add new ones.
Foundry authors can use or ignore this information as they like (as expected - if I want to show my Klingons as peaceful dancers, than that's what will happen in my missions

). But the idea is that you actually get to know the sector and figure out what the races want. Diplomacy missions can actually tie into what is "known" about this races. Heck, maybe you can even get better results in some missions if you actually know what the enemy wants.
Imagine that the Gastroenteryans are invading a colony because they believe there might be Omega Particles there. Well, you don't think they are, and the colonists don't like being held hostage either way, so you can try to offer them something. Maybe you have Warp Coils or Shield Generators loaded and can buy them off. Or you have found a planet where Ventini Roses grow, and can tell them that. But of course, you also get "wrong" options like Decalithium Crystals and Artifacts of the 3rd Dentristrian Dynasty.
New types of diplomacy missions can also be based on this type of information. An armed conflict between the Gastroenteryans and the Vetinistrians could be based on the commodities and interests they have. ("You're sitting on supplies of Ventini Roses!" "So what? You stole some of the Teachings of the Great Ancestors!" "No, did not" "Yes, you did".)
*)
Names are intentionally ridicilous. 
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Another idea I find appealing is that Exploration Clusters might be persistent (per player, per fleet, per team?) and so at the end, you might have fully explored an exploration cluster. Biggest problem is here - where do we get all the content? Persisistant Open PvP in a limited area with repetable content kinda makes sense - the front lines are moving and can move back and forth. But repeatable exploration?
Comments
-industrial: fabricating and developing materials
-agrarian: farming
Every sector block border which is not a doorway to another sector block becomes a doorway to "unexplored space". Unexplored space is a giant sector which wraps all the way around known space (you could make a loop if you were bored enough) and is very deep- as deep as the game's technology allows. If that isn't feasible, it may have to be divided into layers, so that the higher your rank, the deeper you can go. But loading screens are bad.
Unexplored space is populated by systems similar to the current clusters, but the distribution changes as you get farther away from home. Closer in, you're more likely to get "investigate distress call" and "kill five groups of ships". At the deepest point, you'll be making first contacts and scanning for anomalies more often. And there are other phenomena floating around- supernovas to watch, spacegoing creatures to study, unstable wormholes that drop you somewhere random.
So that's unexplored space. Players of all ranks get the same unexplored space. Content scales to the player, so the badges you get do, too. That way, players don't have to explore too deeply if they don't want to.
Eliminating the current exploration clusters solves a problem that is going to arrive when new factions and sectors are added. When the Romulans are added, how will Fed ships reach Khazan and Afehirr?
With one unexplored space wrapping around the map, it won't matter, because no one will have to fly through Romulan space to explore. When a new sector block is added, unexplored space just gets pushed out further.
And one other thing- Sirius Sector Block shouldn't have any borders to unknown space. That's the heart of the Federation, the rest of which (with worlds such as Trill and Betazed) lies to the "west" of Sirius and "east" of Beta Ursae and Alpha Trianguli.
That means that low-ranked players will have to travel at least one sector block from home to explore, which is currently dangerous for them as they'll be jumped by DSEs. So DSEs need to be fixed, too. But exploration of the map should be encouraged early in the game, anyway.
I also like the idea of a sense of depth in unexplored space and changing mission types the further one is from home. That might make exploration something more than a sideline and more like PvP--an alternate path for enjoying the game.
The one thing I'd like to add--and while I have ideas how this might work, I don't write code and I don't know much about the capacities and limitations of game engines, so I'll keep them mostly to myself--is unusual or dangerous natural phenomena. I've seen occasional calls for things like black holes in-game, or neutron stars.
I can imagine a system rather like the system that currently exists with a number of basic types of phenomena--solar, nebular, planetary, exotic (e.g., cosmic strings or sptial anomalies)--that could get randomly tweaked in various ways. Dealing with the phenomenon might involve solving a puzzles or putting together bits and pieces of information to form a correct theory.
Of course, you'd start to run into the same sorts of phenomena after a while, but with enough other sorts of content (like new civilizations), that might not happen soon. And I realize that this sort of exploration might not be exciting to everyone--heck, even I'd get bored with it sometimes--but it feels like an essential part of Star Trek to me.
But...
A lot of Star Trek episodes take place on the ship while the ship is parked studying something interesting. They're talking about possibly making missions involving the player's crew, aboard the player's ship, for season 4. Maybe these 'studying a big anomaly' explore missions could be the backdrop for those events?
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=159592
and / or Pendra's thread
http://forums.startrekonline.com/showthread.php?t=163857
I like this, it would add a sense of "distance".
One thing one can also do is - there might be established planets and ship routes and anomalies in the area. But there might still be randomly appearing anomalies. Hopefully with more then a featureless blip in space but something representing an actual anomaly or even a star system - a star system that always existed but no one took note off so far.
I agree. Having an exploration cluster so close to Earth makes little sense.