How about 'games within the game' ('not-so' mini-games)?
1) recognize that there are a few modes for tactical combat, currently: ship v ship, starbase v ship, and planetary combat; ship v surface (orbital bombardment and surface to orbit interdiction) was not fleshed out or animated in gc i or gc ii but could be included.
2) create a battle (resolution) queue for each player - this would deal with synchronicity issues and battle ingress and egress. The battle would be automatically queued when the battle's initialization/instantiation conditions are meet. Combat would not start until it was the battle's turn to be processed. Only one battle is processed at a time. Battles are processed at the end of the turn, after all other moves are done. advanced features could be the ability to pause a battle and (the player) pop in/out of a battle, the ability to select the battle process order, etc.
3) rework the current combat system so that it is, code-wise, 'black-box' modular... it should be able to 'consume' all of the objects in the battle in their current state and return all of the battle objects in their post-combat transformed state. Ship this with the 'official' release.
4) develop three tactical combat 'expansion' modules (see below)... the modules should be developed to play the gc iii objects in greater detail adding functionality as appropriate for the battle scenario (see below)... release sometime in the gc iii upgrade/expansion cycle.
4a) the fleet battle module: primary added function - the ability to fight (give instruction to) your ships; as a fleet and/or as individual ships... at minimum the ability to give targeting orders (standard weapon selectivity would be an added bonus but special weapons selectivity a necessity) and perhaps maneuver orders (especially withdrawal).
4b) the station battle module: primary added function - the ability to 'fight' the station, to give targeting orders with weapons of choice... secondary added functions - sim 'boarding' & 'repelling' ops.
4c) the surface and orbit battle module: primary added function - the ability to 'fight' the surface battle, to target and maneuver field forces on synthesized terrain that is reflective of the planetary map... secondary added function - to sim (with selective control) landing ops, bombardment ops, and orbital interdiction ops.
I recognize that these three modules are in fact three additional games, so I don't think they should be included with the base package with the initial release; but, I also don't think the tactical combat situation will be resolved to the majority's satisfaction any other way... weapon effect could be dealt with, shipyard options could have real meaning, tech enhancements like 'stealth' could be realistically incorporated, etc.
-David S.