These questions seem to have mostly been asked before and discussed endlessly, but the questions were decently organized and I decided partly for fun to just answer with my opinions and thoughts to each question and concern, guessing what FDev's positions are to these questions..
Features
Is "Space Legs" something you think will get added one day? Will we ever see our commanders interacting in stations and aboard ships?
I expect it will and have faith they are working on it. Preliminary groundwork was already done with multicrew with the avatar implementations. Basic spacelegs, walking around the ship may be 2 to 5 years out. Full rpg mmo spacelegs and interaction more like 10 to 20 years out since no tech exists today to be able to combine a fp mmo with the massive galaxy scope of ED. But I'd think FDev are constantly thinking about or working on trying to crack the nut on the tech hurdles. Any other claim from any other competitor that claim they can or will do this in a game scope similar to ED with tens of thousands of stations and bases among 400 billion systems is just hype, fantasy, or misinformation of what commercial, retail consumer oriented computer gaming systems can do today.
Will we ever have a more complex NPC Crew? Will our ships ever become staffed with NPC's?
I'd think this could come sooner than full rpg spacelegs. The first new features would be able to have hired npc crew show in the chairs. Then basic roles of gunnery, scanning and perhaps some autopiloting by npc's or some entirely new features and roles for the npc's. Maybe possible in the next two or three years.
Are Atmospheric Landings with massive cities and ports possible?
They are coming. FDev has repeatedly mentioned this as a goal to approach. At first it may be just simple, mostly bare livable atmosphere worlds and some gas giants. Maybe this will come in one or two years. Cities and ports , probalby mostly procedually generated could come a few more years out. Massive cities and playable gameplay at lore system locations would realistically be five to ten years out, practically a whole new game and sceneries.
Will players be able to pilot larger ships? Will Player Factions ever have access to capital ships? A later chapter of beyond said there would be faction wings and carriers. Full capital ships, probably not prioritized. If everything else in the game "fillls" out then there could be more sentiment to go in that direction later maybe more than a decade later.
Will HUD Color ever be changeable in-game?
This seems the easiest to implement as possible optional cosmetics for the player. However Fdev's efforts are always limited by "time and resources" and prioritizing. I have no doubt they are constantly working on something or another and while HUD color and customized control is desired by some including myself, it doesn't seem so far to be high on the current priority list.
Will Ship interiors ever become fully customizable? We will be able to see the rest of the ship interior? I'd expect not to see this ever until at least basic spacelegs. So once again, at least two to five years out.
Will our Commanders ever have voices? Will we be able to communicate with NPC's? I don't know nor have a good guess. It may be eventually decided to have cmdrs stick to optional player mic voices or text only. communicating with NPC's would come with basic NPC crew I'd think, so ordering commands to NPC's maybe in two or three years.
Wi
ll the Main Menu rendering ever get changed? (I'm being a bit silly, but really. It hasn't changed) I wouldn't know. I'm fine with it. I like the new "Elite" logo intro change when the game starts up.
Will we ever see high performance "small" ships? ("End Game" is currently dominated by large and high-end medium ships) Don't know. In FFE, the thargoid scout was an "endgame" ship. Personally, I prefer no "endgame" or that the current ships are not even "Eend game ships". i.e. eventually there could be bigger ships, not quite fed or imperial cruiser size but bigger ships than the current big three, i.e. panther clipper, or Turner class. Maybe extra docking outside of the rotating stations and new bays or pavement expanses with giant hangars on the ground bases. Overall I'd like to see at least 20 more new player owned ships come to ED in the next five years or more.
Gameplay
Will Wings and Multi-Crew ever be compatible with each other?
I'd think this would be a demanded goal for the future of ED as an mmo experience. multicrew should eventually be fully functional in combination with wings. I'd bet Fdev are thinking about it and would like to solve these challenges. I've no good guess on timelines though.
We will ever have a ranking for skill? (current ranks are for experience)
I don't know, but I think it would be good if there were rpg skill ranks and progression that came with spacelegs as an rpg mmo. A player or npc's increased skill could for example acheive piloting, or certain fixing abilities i.e. "perks", "skill levels" just like skyrim or other rpgs where it could affect aspects of the rest of ED's current gameplay as well as add to new.
Will missions and payouts scale more with our CMDR's? (They currently scale with travel distance, CMDR rank, and rep) Have no idea. FDev always have to balance payouts with extreme cases leading to exploits and too much credit inflation. I like how they've controlled things, are faster to respond more recently and am ok with how they decide to scale things. Overall, it's been much easier to make credits through non-exploits. 5 to 10 million credits/hour is very doable through normal gameplay.
Will CQC ever be connected to the main game?
I've no idea. I'd like the idea of an arena "instance" or location at certain systems in the game. Kind of like Skyrim and Morrowind where they had special arena places.
Will Credits always be the only main resource, or will new items of value be introduced? (There are Claims that Credits = Power. Will it stay that way?)
Credits unfortunately seem to be the main functional resource of a cmdr. But FDev seem to be making more options to consider such as new module types introduced through the tech broker. Personally, I'd like to see more unique items come with a full fledged mmo/rpg of spacelegs. Players could get a unique item to attach to their ship. Of course this would entail a full mmorpg functionality and enable unique items, possibily with extra staff responsible for lore generation in the game, a big challenge to combine with ED. I wouldn't expect to see something like this in at least a decade.
Bugs and Complaints
Will Combat Logging ever be dealt with? How hard is it to fix? Don't know if it'll ever be fixed. Too many counter perspectives to the supposed CL infraction, too many possible unique situations.
Is the game supposed to feel "grindy" or is that simply how it is at the moment?
It depends. There are many ways to approach the game. For example, take Flight Simulator X, a game system and world that has been around since 2005. In over a decade for scores of 3rd party addon developers and tens of thousands of man hours to develop extra content to make the FSX world feel more full with very realistic systems for addon planes with each plane taking years to develop. One could simulate a simple traffic pattern flight in a GA plane, or a whole flightplan in a heavy airliner simulating much of the aspects of the flight. (
www.pmdg.com) ; So compared to FSX, ED has far less concurrent development and resources, yet FDev seem committed to continually make new content and stick to a list of priorities with their limited "time and resources". Game looks great and has welcome improvements periodically, imo.
Will we be able to buy a ship color for all ships instead of buying ship oriented packs? I can only guess maybe likely not. It seems the store is designed to offer paint packs for the individual types of ships. Only special cosmetics such as string lights, bobbleheads, etc. are allowed to show on different ships of a player's fleet. I don't really mind personally, Frontier needs some income to help with the costs of AWS servers running for ED, otherwise I'd expect to have to pay a monthly fee for the mmo shared world account.