There is a lot of things that I would love to see pulled in from star sector. Like buildling up a planet. The combat control can use work as well.
I would like to be able to have people escort a ship, but go out an immediate attack enemies before they reach the ship. The commands need to be fleshed out. Instead of commands you can have ships have states. I.E they are escorting state, guard state, but then they have AI that determines how they interact with AI; Hunt and Pursue, Attack when only attacked, ignore etc. This way you can have ships escort other ships, but change their state when enemies show up. It seems this and star sector have a lot in common.
I would like to see more fleshed out Captain traits and the traits refined, a lot of them seem lackluster and not exciting. There should also be more ways for Captains to gain experience and it not being just using commands.
I want to be able to see my fleets stats, cargo holds, and details without having to be in the ship to see them. Its kind of annoying to have to load a sector in order to check out if the cargo is full.
Quality of life for mining is control miners from the map. I.E. mine sector and when they need to refine I can move them and refine in a sector that has a resource depot without having to send them on a refine command.
More factions and better designed ships for factions.
Allow miners to mine and refine, not having to tell them to do one or the other. If the goal is to make people use the commands, just make the commands more lucrative and require escorting more.
Most important one, advertise this game more. This game is crazy unique and would love to see it grow.
