[Q]

1.) Better combat placement.
The placement of the ships at the beginning of the combat in SE IV is rather weird, to say it politely. I have seen large combats with random outcome due to different starting positions in SE IV. Usually I think all ships/units/planets should be not in range of direct fire weapons at the beginning with the exception of battles after warping and if cloaked undetected ships are involved. And in tactical combat you should have the possibility to place your ships in a restricted area as you want them.
2.) "Auto move" and "auto fire" in tactical combat. In larger battles there might be situations were you want to control only movement or firing manually and let the computer do the rest.

IIRC both problems was handled better in SE III than in SE IV.