Here's a list of easily done changes that would improve game play immeasurably.
1. Ability to send ships ahead. Great to have a weekend of reduced engineering, but when you have twenty ships scattered all over, it takes a weekend of flying just to get them there. The ability to send them into the engineer system (and back again) would save a LOT of time.
2. Ability to see security state of the system you are presently in. You get an alert before you jump telling you if the system you are going to is HiSec, MedSec, LoSec or Anarchy, when jumping into a system, but there is no way to tell when in that system unless you go to GalMap. That should be on the HUD somewhere.
3. Run missions based on time spent in-game, not elapsed time. You start a two hour mission and the power goes out, or Internet goes down, or the wife calls you in a panic about something and you have to go. You log off, but the game keeps ticking down the time. Instead, the mission time should freeze until you log back in. There will need to be considerations for BGS tickover here, but that is weekly. If I log back on four hours later, I should be able to pick up where I left off. I suffer penalties when the time elapses and a lot of time it isn't my fault for being kicked offline.
4. NPC's need memories. If I shoot up Carlos Spicyweiner (Love that name BTW) and I encounter him within 30 days, he should remember our encounter and treat me accordingly. I may have shot up his T-6, but now he's in a Anaconda and mad.
5. Create a folder in the E: D game dir called MP3. Then add play, pause, stop, next / previous track buttons to the HUD and let players drop their own music into that directory to be controlled by the buttons. Better still, just add a music path in settings so we can designate our music folders to be played in game.
6. Add a PVP flag. Visible to all players, this can only be changed when on the pad. ON means you are open to other players attacking you. If they do so, there are no penalties to the attacking player unless the attackers PVP flag is set OFF. If it is, then they get a regular assault bounty (piracy as an example), become WANTED and get heavy death bounty plus notoriety if they kill the other player. Attack a player with PVP flag set OFF and incur heavy penalties / notoriety as described. If both players are are set ON, then no one gets punishment. Interdictions will still incur a fine.
7. Notoriety can only be improved by doing good deeds. It should also be visible to all players so we know who we are dealing with. No more time degradation. Do something idiotic and your notoriety stays at that level until you actively do something to improve it. You should need to do ten good things for every act of bad. This will identify the gankers very quickly and if they want to hide in the bushes with the rest of us after a string of idiocy, they really need to work at it. If that does not work then make it twenty good deeds to one bad and so on. Notoriety should be a reflection of that players in-game behavior to date with no decreases because of time.
8. Permit lock starter systems. New players can spend their time learning game mechanics in a reasonably safe environment. Make it a good system with lots of ringed worlds for mining, exploration, RES and CZ. There should be no way to get a permit for this system. Should have a Black market, planet landings and decent outfitting to try all aspects of the game. Once a player leaves this system, they cannot return. Make sure nothing but small ships are available for sale in that system so experienced players cannot start a position to gank noobs in a Python or Conda. Missions should all be local to that system, obviously.
9. Galactic Bounty Board. The Top 10 (or 20, or 50) players and their bounties should be listed on a board accessible at all stations. This board will have the last station they were seen at, the game time, the game mode they were in (Open or Private, Solo players will not be listed for obvious reasons) and whether they are online or not. You could reorder the list to show who is closest to you at the time you checked. You want bounty hunting to discourage idiocy? Then give players the tools to find these people. Ant. Boot.
10. Hire NPC Wingmen. This may not be fundamentally easy, but would be nice to have a couple of Elite Eagles or even Vultures protecting my back when in a T-9 or cargo Conda on a high risk run or CG. Hire them for two, three or four hour contracts for either cash or a % of what you make, or both.
Feel free to add your own.