dogface

It would just be wholesome and community-like. Let us right-click any construct we see and have the option to give it a "like". Maybe have the option to "like" anonymously, but being able to see who gave your construct attention would feel pretty cool. And yet another flex-metric, naturally

I personally have several friends who would play this game just to play it like a flight simulator. With a better mission system and missions that are different based on your location, HOTAS support could pull players from other HOTAS-supporting space games I shall not name (and similarly have some notorious reputations).
I play all the space games and DU's flight model has spoiled me. I think its one of the best aspects of this game, and I think it's heavily undersold in the promo material. Realistic space flight is almost unheard-of in this genre. Please consider moving HOTAS support up the list of priorities! I guarantee it is a feature that will grab players on its own (and ones who don't care about amassing assets or creating excessive data load)

DU, we're all here because we love you, and we want you to get better.
I, like many leaders of small orgs or solo players, were hit very hard by the mining unit changes. We had just secured enough T2 and 3 burn-tiles to supply us with what we need, sell the rest, buy what we don't have, and craft t2 and 3 elements to participate in the economy. All of that was immediately pulled out from underneath us with the removal of "calibration mining".
I haven't played since, but I have been lurking and watching the progress of the game. It seems the removal of bot buy-orders was even more ruinous, which makes sense as I know not everyone relies on mining units.
The thing is, more players with access to 2s and 3s is not a bad thing, and in fact is a sync in its own way: It takes exponentially more T1s to crafter higher tier stuff, essentially allowing T1s to retain their value even in a market with no shortage of T2+ rocks.
I thinking mining unit gameplay is actually kind of fun, I appreciate the combination of active-resources you can get from burning charges and the reliability of its passivity. I have no problems keeping my account active just to log in every 4 days and keep my MUs up, doing large market runs once that big hauler fills up.
At the moment, there is no reason to build a ship larger than a S core market hopper, to say nothing of the pvp meta.
 
All of this is to say that calibration mining should come back in some form, but the idea is to provide an individual player with just a few thousand (instead of 2-3k per charge) higher tier ore in a single "outing", allowing them to get involved in higher tier markets, either by safely selling them or starting their own small industry. (I personally just run a couple of assembly lines, no massive mega factories. Just enough to print some lights and screens and L engines, the stuff my orgmates and myself use the most. The idea was to eventually start crafting warp cells so we can easily get to our other resource spots on other planets, creating a gameplay loop for ourselves. It's all impossible at the moment.)
 
Add another button to the mining units. A "burn charge" option. It can deposit the smallest amount of surface rocks possible, like the amount of a 40% calibration with no battery. You can even deposit them directly into a box so we can't benefit from surface-harvest talents (which would kinda suck because the synergy of the mining talents is very satisfying at the moment) It also doesn't even have to be instant, maybe taking a minute or two. But no cooldown. Maybe talents to reduce the time, just spitballin' here.
 
It would also be very interesting and provide for some fun times if this "calibration-mining" system could be used on dynamic constructs, and maybe even in space. Another mini-game (or not, people seem split on the current ones) that can spend a calibration charge to spawn/locate a small rock in space that you mine with the mining tool instead of the surface harvester. Some system can be used to pinpoint specific ores, and certain ores can only be found in certain parts of space/around certain planets (in pve space, please)
 
Either way, the market is crashing for a number of reasons, but the sudden removal of access to materials for smaller groups and "casual/average" players is among the most disastrous. Calibration mining needs to return in some form, even if it is significantly less lucrative than asteroid mining, it should be a way for players to sustain themselves.

Randomly generated missions. Different for each player and rerolled at random intervals, if not able to be rerolled by the player.
Missions will have random starting and ending spots, and random volume/weight to move. Payout is calculated by distance and weight.
It would be possible to (wait to) reroll missions until enough were similar across a series of alts and still game the system as it is now, but it would be significantly more laborious, especially if there were a lot more pick-up/drop-off points.
On that note, let players create pick-up/drop-off points for NPC missions, an element they can place on their base. Generating traffic between player tiles should be a top priority if "community" is a gameplay aspect to be emphasized. To prevent exploits, like players placing these far out of reach, let us have some context-menu option to operate the element from a distance (maybe "get package" from an "active missions" tab, so you don't have to be physically interacting with it and players can't be trolls)
Other possibilities:
Missions should be granted by a mission hub, another unique interactive element, instead of taken from an F- menu. This would mostly be cosmetic, but this element can also be one that players build and can set up to be public, like a DSAT, again generating traffic between player-made cities.