One thing I've noticed with the influx of new users, is a noticeably higher number of ship fits with nonsensical weapon choices that leave many of their ships performing well below what they could be. While building ship loadouts is a tough skill to learn that takes time to really understand, one way to help alleviate this would be to make using autofit friendlier to newer users.
Essentially, when using autofit have the UI display warnings after selecting an autofit variant that cannot be properly completed with given resources. For example, if using autofit for the Balanced variant of the hammerhead without having access to heavy mortars or Integrated Targeting Unit, 2 warnings would be displayed:
"Caution: Some weapons required for this variant are currently unavailable, and have been substituted with other weapons. This can impact final combat performance severely."
"Caution: Missing the Integrated Targeting Unit hullmod. This ship may perform worse in combat as a result."
In addition, if possible highlight which weapons on the resulting ship have been substituted for others.
I remember in my early days knowing next to nothing about the ship fits autofit gave me, and trusted them blindly without realizing how it could leave my ships in a subpar state. Hopefully this could help newer players keep in mind that they will want to acquire certain weapons in order for their ships to perform the best they can.