I know I'm not the first to suggest this, but with the new update just out I think it would be good time to revisit it. I think the simulator is starting to noticeably show its age relative to how polished the rest of the game has become, especially since there are now many ships, weapons, and entire factions you can't face in the simulator at all.
I know that I personally spend a decent amount of my play time testing stuff out in the simulator, and I think a lot of other players do as well so I think it makes sense to make improvements to it a pretty high priority. So that said, my suggestions are as follows:
-Have ships unlock in the simulator as you fight them
It probably doesn't make sense to have every ship in the game available right away, that's a lot of choices and it would spoil the novelty of new ships, especially the redacted and ultra redacted, but having some starting default ships unlocked, and then unlocking the ships you fight seems like a good way to expand the selection gradually without spoiling anything. You could also unlock ships you have blueprints for. It really does feel unfortunate right now that you can't fight every ship in the simulator, and it would definitely be fun to be able to train against redacted and ultra redacted ships in the late game.
-Let the player choose any number of any type of ship, and randomize their equipment
Currently the simulator only has a small number of each type of ship with a predefined loadout. I think it would be better if you could just pick, say, two paragons, or four manticores, and the simulator randomly generates the ship's loadout.
-Let the player choose if the enemy ships have officers
Currently there's no way to fight ships with skills in the simulator, so it would be good if you could try out opponents with and without officers.
