My favourite part of the game is the beginning. You're small and scrappy, your fleet of two frigates feels cozy and intimate. Battles never felt like so much was at stake, and like the player had so much influence, as those first few sparring matches with hounds and mudskippers. Wins were never so satisfying as beating four ships with two, or trading blows against shields until 0% combat readiness causes one to glitch out and succumb. Sure, there is spectacle in the big capital clashes, but the excitement is lessened knowing the outcome beforehand.
What I would love to see is more reasons to own and play with a small fleet of frigates, or more access to that kind of gameplay in later parts of the game. I'm talking something along the lines of:
- Contests, like tournaments sanctioned by the major powers, or maybe pirate captains who lay down bets to challenge you to 2-on-2 frigate "street" duels. A structured environment in which to play with frigate builds for real stakes.
- Missions, like the ones already in the game's main menu, but in the campaign that can be tied to progress. Maybe you get hired freelance to command someone else's fleet for a decisive battle or ambush. Succeed, receive pay, perhaps scaling with your grade. Reputation reward too.
- Some kind of exploration object or hazard that requires, or greatly prefers, small ships to interact with. Imagine some small [redacted] outpost, just 1 or 2 ships like you usually see, but they have a magnetic field that only lets in 10 DP worth of ships to battle them. (And they're guarding hella treasure.) So you are rewarded for carrying small ships, even with your endgame fleet, to participate in events like that.
Any one of those would bring the excitement of starting a new game, while letting the player keep, and further invest in his save file.