On the front it looks pretty nice, but there are some underlying problems that, well, pretty much flat out kill the game.

Firstly:  Getting anywhere.

It's a chore. There is no autopilot.  Spark transfer is nice, but unless you've got gear where you're going it works for picking up distant missions or whatever.
Moving is SLOW, even on these highway things which get you nowhere you need to be.  This makes earning 'standings' with the various NPC corps an exercise in mind numbing boredom.  Much less going somewhere and finding raw materials - the mining system in Perp is just as bad.

Fixes:
Highways -
A:  They should GO PLACES.  All the way.  From terminals to outposts, from teleporters to teleporters or outposts, all the DAMN WAY.
B:  There should be autopilot on the highways.  You click a location and, if there's a road to it, your bot will automatically snail pace itself that way.
C:  The speed boost for highways should be profound - up to 4x or more (perhaps have an extension that improves highway performance up to that cap).

Missions -
A:  Come up with a standings/NiC formula for each level.  Considering the biggest time sink in the entire game is getting somewhere it needs to have some concrete value.  The further apart your mission locations, the longer it's going to take, the higher the returns should be!
B:  Find some way to eliminate spark-mission exploits (such as getting a high level mission on gamma for X resource, sparking to alpha to mine it, and turning it in at an alpha terminal for gamma rewards).  All industrial missions should require mission type resources only - that have to be secured on the island where the mission is taken.

Ganks - (I'm going to ramble here a bit)
I seem to remember there was a progressive penalty for multiple aggressors on a single target... I believe that the gankers have worked that out to a finite number.
A target's threat level needs to be inversely proportional to its defense - adjusted by its fittings.  So a mining-fit argano should be a pretty annoying tank even without a shield, whereas one fitted with Ewar or remote repair or even weapons should be 'softer' - because it's threat level is higher (it can fight back).  If that argano wants to tank out and go weaponless it should take considerably longer to destroy - turn one-sided ganks into a time sink.
yes, the argano will die - the choice is how long to tie up the attackers.  Even if they don't outright gank it the attackers can still annoy the pilot away from doing what they want to do.
10 heavy mechs would need to spend the same time on that one argano as a single heavy would.  This will serve to lower the 'gank' side of PvP as a solo guy can do just as well as a gang of 10 - against unarmed industrials.  That gang of 10 would then be less inclined to swarm-&-gank purely industrial assets (because it's become a time sink that's just flat out BORING) and more inclined to find something that can actually shoot back (because such battles would be 'faster', and more engaging than stomping slugs).  Adding armor, resistance plates, and the like should actually lower the resistances offered by the gathering modules making the target easier to kill rather than harder.
Likewise with haulers - though not as 'tough' as gatherbots - The fewer offensive modules (Ewar) the 'tougher' they are intrinsically.  Armor modules should have considerably more effect on an unarmed hauler - both because they slow it down (and time is a precious resource considering the pain of getting anywhere) - and they bot has no ability to do anything but die - albeit slowly.

Thusly - Miner/Harvester modules should provide a considerable amount of resistances and armor to the mining mech (without slowing it down).  A fully fit gathering bot should be able to easily achieve close to 90+% resistances across the board.  Remote support (energy transfers, sensor boosters) as well but considerably less so.  Remote armor repair only 1/4 that of gathering modules.
Ewar and weapons provide no defensive bonuses and interfere with gathering modules (CPU/PG costs double when Ewar and gathering modules are used on the same chassis).
Perhaps a fixed number of attackers should even be able to achieve target lock on a mech due to what modules are fitted (gathering modules put out massive EM fields disrupting the targeting comps of whatever), but support modules cause less EM interference.

All this is solely intended to piss off those people who are only interested in one sided ganks with zero risk from unarmed targets like a Mk2 heavy shooting arkhe drones.  It is not intended to keep those unarmed targets alive - merely keep them alive beyond the point that these ganks are 'easy' or 'fun'.

Mining-
A: Pretty boring as it stands; that nice little tile scan does not update as you mine out a 'block' - pretty lame.
B: There needs to be an area scan charge that lets you know everything that's inside it's scan area - but not how much.  Just that you have Tit, Liq, and HDT there somewhere.  Screw the arrows, honestly.