You start now and we'll see where you are in another decade! I'm sure you'll get plenty of great input over in the Bay 12 forums
I certainly spent my fair share dreaming about a much more grand space game with all kinds of elements like that. It was what I wanted to make (and started to make in console/text form) back in the late 90s when I was first getting into programming. Earlier than that I made a PnP version with a vast setting and mechanics spanning all sorts of possibilities and "modes of interaction," but of course that's much easier than coding it out, hehe. Oh to have some hundreds more years of life to see some things like this come to fruition! I occasionally mull over and flesh out minor elements of my ASCII megagame, but at the same time it's also kinda depressing thinking that by the time it's done, if it could ever be "done," I'd be really really old...
"ASCII Homeworld" actually doesn't sound half bad.