Some ideas I’m thinking about:
1) Carriers. Basically ships would have a carrier module that would let them repair fighters. the fighters would get a new order to return to base after X damage, and after Y time docked underneath the parent cruiser, the fighter could launch totally repaired. Probably an expensive or heavy module. This needs new orders, module and of course lots of balancing.
2) Scenario-Limits. A mission can be defined where there are more complex restrictions on the fleet other than pilots and cost. A crew limit, or a limit on the number of missile modules or plasma turrets. Maybe a mission where there can only be one third of the budget spent on cruisers, etc…
3) Drones. A module launches not dumb missiles, but active drones that hunt down and shoot enemy fighters, or clamp onto enemy armor and drill through it slowly over time. They can be shot down by point defence weapons.
4) Increased area of effect rule. Missiles in-flight can be vaporised by the blast waves from exploding ships
5) Anti-Missile Missiles. Another form of anti-missile defence.
6) Shielded Missiles. (take multiple PD hits)
7) Gravity Bombs Ultra slow missiles which drift transparently through enemy shields.
8) Multi-source beam weapons (several beams converge on one point, allowing multiple hardpoints to join forces to fire a single more deadly beam).
9) Decoy transmitters. Allows a fighter to impersonate a cruiser or frigate for short periods to draw enemy fire.
I doubt any of this will make it into the games release. I suspect a lot of it will end up in the game eventually, either through expansion packs, modding or just extra free content. Thoughts?