They just need to overhaul it like they did with Powerplay 2.0 and revamp the maps and bring more variety to it. Give me Odyssey stuff.
Seriously, how cool would it be to have a game of cat and mouse, where the cats are a team flying eagles and the mice are SRV's tasked with getting from A to B safely around a planetary course?
Most laps completed vs average eagle team kills in 10m wins 10,000 credits (which increases by 2 every rank up), 3 arx, and they could sell SRV and eagle paint jobs like hot cakes because who wouldn't want to.
Hell they could even do fighter-ship based obstacle courses that are effectively time trials like how people race drones.
Alternative alternative suggestion: integrate CQC into the main game via starport based arcades, accessed via the lifts. I also like the recent suggestion that CQC ranks could provide care packages like PP ranks.
Ridiculous. Why just CQC ranks? All ranks should provide "care" packs then.
Many merits for CQC if your opponents are pledged would be a nice thing.
It's probably not a thing but we'll never know since no one plays CQC.
Rewards won't really fix what the high friction of finding a match / waiting break though.
All of the others do provide some sort of reward for reaching them.
Exobio and Mercenary ranks unlock additional cosmetics at each rank.
Trade, Combat and Exploration ranks improve mission rewards, unlock cosmetics, and sometimes give access to engineers or permits.
CQC ranks give absolutely nothing, not even cosmetics (there's the permit, which is nice, but isn't tied to your Pilots Federation rank)
I don't think it would make a significant difference to player numbers if they did come with some sort of benefit, but being able to use your CQC rank as a decal, or maybe unlock the occasional SLF skin, would be consistent with the others.
Heck, let us get better SLFs while we're at it. Give me SLFs with Silent Running and I'll play that mode for DAYS.