[Q]

Two more ideas/suggestions:

1.) Construction/repair:
I would like a combination of the SE III/SE IV. Like in SE III you have to buy the ships/units first and pay the full amount of resources needed. Then you get the ship but with no functional components. They have to be constructed one after the other. You could switch the constructed item from one space yard to another in the same sector. Like in SE IV each component/unit/(facility?) has a different construction time. In SE IV this is equal to the resource costs, in SE V there would be a special amount of "construction effort" for each component and space yards could build XX points per turn of this construction effort. Cost and construction time could therefore be different.
And finally each component has a "repair amount" and repair bays would repair YY points per turn. That would allow you to have components that are very hard to repair and others that can be fixed quickly.
2.) Fleet shields.
Special components that create shields which protect the entire fleet. Only after the fleet shield has been depleted individual ships would be attacked (unless of course you use shield ignoring weapons).