Faction commissions seem somewhat underdeveloped. They could be expanded upon to create a whole new set of faction related missions.
For example, cargo escort missions. A faction could hire you to escort their cargo ships from A to B, with some money up front and a larger reward upon arrival based on the % of surviving transports.
Commerce raid missions could also be interesting, offering money for each cargo ship destroyed. The AI could also act on these missions to offer opponents in the cargo escort missions and vise versa.
Factions could stage invasions (eg, Hegemony building up and invading Culann). Both the attacker and defender would hire mercenaries to bolster their forces and offer larger bounties to the player for participating.
What do you think about this? I think it would make the game feel more realistic and add more depth to faction interactions.