Heyho

The Noxter will take a breath in v3 and come back in an addon for v3 - after a complete redo of course The Breen will appear as an avatar for the Dominion and as an independent NP race. We have no plans for the Xindi at the moment
In future releases you will find the Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Borg, Dominion, Noxter, Iconian, Ciadan as playable races and millions of NP races  
(well okay not millions    )

Yep, a Sovy texture redo is on the todo list

There will be many new planets for the maps and a few suns to pep it up

The Noxter have had alot of work put into them, obvously if the development team decide to drop them it leaves a massive hole to fill. i believe the development team will try to salvage this race before they replace it.

personally i shair your opinion, with the biological races floating about i feel they belong at map objects and not main races.

Federation, Klingon, Romulan, Borg these four races are a given, they work extreamly well and only need tweeked.

Tholians · Gorn · (not likely)Q  · Ferengi · Cardassians  · (not likely)Bajorans  · Hirogen
Dominion  · Breen  · (not likely)Xindi

these are potential substitute races, alittle about the lesser known ones...

Tholians
A highly advanced sentient — apparently crystalline species, non-humanoid in appearance and extremely territorial in disposition. They hail from a hot planet by human standards, probably not Class-M. Together, two Tholian ships can literally spin a web of energy in space in order to trap an enemy vessel, after which the web is then drawn together, constricting and finally destroying the vessel inside. On stardate 5693.2, the U.S.S. Enterprise NCC-1701 made first contact with this species.

Gorn
The GORNS are a reptilian race from planets with grater gravity than Earth and with a harsher climate, which perhaps accounts for their greater endurance. Though battle is not the overwhelming preoccupation with them that is for Klingons and Romulans, the Gorn prize physical strength and endurance over intellect.

Hirogen
A spacefaring nomadic race of the Delta Quadrant whose society has been completely based upon the ritual hunt for a millennium, despite their advanced technological status. All other species are viewed as prey, not equals, but only challenging prey are prized and pursued.

Breen  
A humanoid species from a cold planet who operate in a politically non-aligned manner and are reputed to be aggressive, with outposts in Sector 97. It is presumed that the Breen home system is in an adjacent sector. While the Federation has some knowledge of their ways, Betazoids are unable to detect the Breen empathically, and the Breen's use of cloaking technologies coupled with powerful disruptor-style weapons makes them both formidable and inaccessible to the Federation

i think i remeber hearing that there will be up to v6...

the gorn were in the TOS episode "Arena" Season 1

v3 will not be called beta v1 and v2 were tho (i don't know why....)

i am personally really looking forwards to the Iconians and Cidians and tho more races would be nice i belive that this game (not mod ) would be compleate without more...

iconians, yes. i remember the DS9 episode where starfleet & dominion team up to hunt down some rebel jem hadar. the rebels were gaurding an iconian gateway. (whatever that is) i think the iconians themselves are thought to have become extinct many centuries ago  

Iconians were first mentioned in an episode of TNG where Picard found an iconian gateway in romulan space (iconian gateways allow instantainous transportation from one point to another)

The Ciadians were made up by the FO team and i belive that they will be truely awesom, do a forum search on "Ciadian" and see what you get

What about the planets?

"Planets and Suns (these sound cool) - yet there was a topic a while back to enable shuttle trafic on planets. I know planets are not colonizable on FO, but could there not be a way of capturing a planet? then have that races specific shuttle traffic (simply for game / beauty reasons). Species such as the Noxter would not have any need for Shuttles."

Also, "Why is FleetOps called Beta? Beta2, Beta3 etc etc... Beta is like a demo, or a test, yet FO is a MOD (of which works fine)!"

Last thing - there was something mentioned in another thread of having a 'water nebula' the idea is good, but i wouldn't have it as a nebula as such, i would have it as a planet (just so happens that you're ships can hide / go into the water planet)!