It's already part of the game - it's called the background sim (BGS).... where you or a group, could start a planetary settlement, attract trade, build, collect resources needed to do so by using your ships, build defenses, .....
That would give this game purpose. Right now the player is too detached from the decisions and actions required because of them. Also detached from the other players impact on those decisions.
Sorry if if this has been discussed before.
I've argued several times in the past that for BGS-oriented groups, the game is, in many ways, an RTS/TBS hybrid with a very unusual interface.