Generalizations by an Oldbie

First and foremost, I’d like to see a combat atmosphere, both on the ground and in the air, that focused more on player involvement and strategic movement than catching players off guard and capitalizing on player downtimes. The former refers more to ground combat, while the latter focuses more on space. While I am sure some would object, I would like to see a more ambitious capital ship AI so that a single enemy ship cannot just stand around waiting for the timer to finally become in their favor when player times are low – it would impede overnight raids in what would be implausible situations, or at least make them more difficult, and the current capital ship AI is pretty weak when it comes to capital ship capabilities. They tend to be rather slow in using what they have against larger enemies. On that note, it would be nice to see more planetary automated defenses that could help a defense, but the current capabilities of planetary cannons would have to be scaled down. Maybe the two sectors designated as safe zones could have more powerful automated defenses, but it would be nice to see at least some strategic placement of planetary defense systems (this could have a financial cost to the greater clans) that had at least a tipping of the scale effect.
On that same note, to make it easier to raid an enemy base or planet, it would be cool if their were capture points on the planet that were in a smaller area than the planet as a whole, so enemy players would have to try to defend those points to prevent a planet from being taken over. If they ran to the remote areas, such as the mines and desert of Lorrd, they would risk losing the planet. I think this would have a nice way of concentrating military battles that normally would be taking place over the entire planet.
On the note of combat, I’ve always disdained a long grind for gear for plus this and that. It would be better to have quests that give you skills if you complete them, but for combat gear to be largely normalized. Perhaps make HR largely a factor of your combat level, and not your +HR gear? If you make it harder to hit people, it would be more based on skill use and strategy for the people involved in combat. Just my many more than two cents, thanks for reading if you did.