There's a new Master of Orion game in the GOG library as "coming soon". Did I miss any announcement about that game? Is this a remake or a sequel of the old games?

It is a new game, and was announced in June.

One of the GOG pictures indicates that there will be starlanes instead of free travelling between stars *like, for example, MOO3). If true, this will have a significant gameplay impact - a huge difference compared with the original MOO1.

I am hoping that it is a mix of racial traits and technology regarding starlanes. I want the option to build a race around free roaming, or another that prefers sailing the channels.

Its a remake of Master of Orion 1 with new graphics, AI and new features. Allthough supposedly the tactical combat will be downgraded (kind of the most important feature of the game) and the game will be streamlined (whatever that means).

Interview with Wargaming about the game after the announcement: http://www.pcgamer.com/wargaming-on-master-of-orion-this-is-a-passion-for-us/

I guess this means that it's easier to use and understand but maybe also less challenging and fun.

I'll wait for reviews not previews.

Interesting reading. I'm not sure what this means: "It is practically the poster-child for free-to-play multiplayer success. "

Please have a look at the eighth picture of the media gallery of the GOG entry of the new MOO (link: see first post of this thread). It shows a number of stars with planets - and lines between them. I don't know how these lines can mean anything but star lanes. Nothing against star lanes, but it's not MOO1. Star lanes have far-reaching implications for game design and playing strategy. In MOO1 (the original one) you can reach a star directly from all other stars (assuming you have the right technology), star lanes mean you can reach a star directly only from a small number of others (so once you have those, you are safe against a direct attack). Again, there's nothing wrong with that, but I wouldn't call a game with star lanes a remake or whatever of MOO1.
I'm curious to see what the new MOO really looks like (shouldn't take long, fall 2015 has arrived already). Master of Orion with star lanes reminds me of MOO3, a game which is a lot better than its image (with the tropical or chocolate mod).

By the way, if you want to have a look what star lanes or no star lanes means, play Sword of The Stars. There you have races limited to using star lanes, and others which can roam freely through the game universe. Play 2 games (with one of each kind), and play games against opponents of both kinds. Makes a huge difference, gameplay-wise.

I've also read somewhere that buyers of new MOO will get MOO1-3 as a bonus which leads to a question if classic MOOs will appear on Steam or Steam users will get GOG keys

Anyone have any word on whether or not it's going to have tactical combat?

From what they said the focus is going to be on: "Strategic planning. Resource management". This is in Wargamings words what they see as 4x.

How was tactical combat the most important feature of the game?
In my opinion it was hardly usable in the earlier games because the animations took ages and there was no way to skip them. I can't think of a single thing that made MOO 1 and 2's tactical combat good.

If you stripped everything away from the games apart from tactical combat they wouldn't be very good tactical combat games.
I wonder what you'd consider a more disposable game mechanic than tactical combat in the MOO games.

I can. It's a long time ago but what I liked about MoO1 was that you could build fleets of hundreds of small ships and fight fleets of a few big ships with them. It was a nice strategic element to have this (many small vs. few big) element and you would not get attached to your ships that much. Many successors including MoO2 have done that wrong in my eyes. Also I don't remember that tactical combat was that bad in MoO 1. It was kind of interesting to see your fleets clash with the fleet of the enemy and see who survives. And it also did not take too long to watch as far as I remember.

That strategy also works in MOO2, for me (The way it works best is building a huge number of tiny ships with just one or two shots). The only problem is the sometimes very limited number of ships you are able to build until you are losing credits.
I just can't find anything that makes it very good. Why would I want to play MOO if I wanted good tactical combat?
That's not essentially a feature of the tactical combat because you could just as well hit "auto" in MOO1 and see the fleets clash.
For me it does, but maybe I'll just have to speed up DOSbox by a lot.
The speed which I assume the games are supposed to run at is unacceptable at times.

Thanks for all the infos. I hope the remake succeeds.

More than likely, on Steam. After all, with Wargaming owning the franchise now and publishing the remake on Steam, there is little reason to not release the classics there as well.