A bigger space truck to haul cargo as a way to avoid the boring time sink that is the trading mechanic is not worth the effort of imagining it.
If we're going to spend time imagining things that wont be, imagine something that creates something new to do.
Imagine a ship that consumes debris and you can then fabricate parts to expand this ship to produce other items, even rebuilding the ship itself to other forms and stats. Perhaps becoming self sufficient and supporting the docking of other smaller ships. Imagine this ship is flyable and damageable. It has a magnificently dangerous maw that tears matter apart. Repairing the ship is another new mechanic as it can't be paid for. Instead of slf's, it has a repair drone that you fly around when safe. Rejoining damaged parts, welding cracks, installing replacement parts you fabricated, etc. the quality of your completion of these activities directly impacts the peformance of the module or subsystem.
Or if salvage isn't your thing.. imagine a hybrid thargoid ship that requires food or it dies. Requiring you to collect thargoid resources (specific life forms growing on planetary surfaces that you must land over so the ship can scoop up) that are protected by hostile forces. This ship can do wonderous things though.. jump distances far greater than any normal human ship. Able to jump to any body in a system. The ship can't dock or approach any human stations, as the ship damages human tech when in prolonged contact. the ship instead cacoons in hyperspace when not in use and you exit and enter the ship on the surface of a planet. You can then call a taxi or any of your in system ships to pick you up. Calling it is done the same way, only, you can call it from any system no matter where you last dismissed it. Being alive, the ship performs better the better you treat it. It has needs that vary. Sometimes it wants to explore, sometimes it wants to feed, and sometimes it wants to fight. You get temporary buffs when your activity aligns with the ship. The ship talks to you in a strange semi alien way, communicating what it wants and suggesting activities or warning about danger or injury. It could like you, fear you, dislike you or find you amusing based on your actions and how you treat the ship. This can use ai to construct phrases that take logged activity. You can not free type to it but some canned choices are available.
Imagine something new, whatever it is. The panther is boring and unecessary. If the need exists to move more numbers from one station to the next and the activity is not fun, just change how big of a number the existing cargo modules can support. Problem solved, no work needed. The ship makers at fdev could better invest their time in something novel.
