No idea what your problem ist, but

1.) it always is better to have more slots even if you can not use all of them than to have not enough slots.
2.) if you fit your MK1 fitting, there might be some mods that give you a slight buff even if not optimal to drop in the additional slots
3.) you get one more bonus on your mk2

Sometime in the future there will be mods and extensions that WILL make the slots even more usefull! It was the same with EVE and it will be the same here.

With regards to targeting, I see no reason, why it should be changed except for maybe manual targeting fps style...

Autotracking works pretty good already and will be even better in the future, so I imagine that autotargeting and hitting is simply a matter of target size, distance and speed changes of the target. Within the limited optimal and falloff ranges in this game and the limited speed (100km/h = 27m/s) I would say the effects of speed and movement vector are neglegable and sufficient solved with hit dispersion. (IMHO)

Different hit zones like in Battletech and with different damage to your equipment is a good idea imho and I would even support crippling movement and targeting due to damaged MODULES but not amount of left armor. If armor percentage is the factor, pve won't be fun and pvp even less, due to the nature of being targeted and shot by lots of enemies at a time.

In EVE you had combat pilots as protection to prevent miners getting killed by NPCs if they actually mine in a system where NPCs are strong enough to kill a mining ship. That could be made necessary in PO as well. Of course value of plants/ore is increasing that way.

You obviously did not read the last few pages of comments nor the latest patch notes. Or maybe you just did not think about the changes...

More NIC from new loot compensates loss of NIC from Kernels. If Kernel prices stay around the same as they were so far, you can buy as many kernels from market in exchange of your loot NIC that in total you again have a kernel for each NPC kill.

Since I am lacking ideas how to finish my coding at work, I'll spent some thoughts on this as well.

Since I play online games almost since they actually exist and having played numerous MMORPGs, including several years of EVE Online, I tell you that EP actually does matter. It might not be that much in large scale battles (>100 vs 100) but it is a big difference in small skirmishes. Not only do you last longer (more Armor, more Resists, more Energy, more dmage, etc...), but you also are able to fill several roles which means your small group of players is more flexible and can adapt faster to happenings.

Imho EP is the key to be pro in any game like this. Of course you can still be a dumbass and have no clue why faster speed might be good ;-), but in lots of situations more EP gives you that little edge to succeed in what ever.

Having said that, I like having an advantage as long time subscriber, since it comforts my playstyle and looking at high EP numbers makes me giggle ;-), but I would also support the idea that beginners get f.e. 20% more EP the first 3 months or can buy faster EP gain for a certain amount of time or amount of EP, depending on the average EP of ingame players.
Lots of other MMOs (in fact any free to play i have seen yet) offer that.

On the other hand the game is just 5 months yet so the difference is not that much (just take a look at the calculations above) as it would be starting all over with EVE these days for example, so I do not think such increased EP gain is needed for newcomers at this stage of the game, but might be in a year or two.

@Kalsius: I do not think of having separate Events for different bot types but have different bot types as mission requirement that you can controll the number of each type that are at a battlefield at any time.

A bit more detailed explanation:
You have 20 lights, 20 light ewar, 20 mech ewar and 20 assault,  20 mech, 20 heavy meach, 20 ewar mech and 50 of any type for mission "Gain control of zeta island for faction x".

That way you can make sure that not more than 190 in total are on each side for one battlefield. You also make sure, that you have a certain mix of bot types since you can not have more than 70 of each class max (20 specific mission requirement and 50 any bot) but also at least 20 of each type.

Of course there might be better ideas to balance teritorial control, but with my idea of handing out missions for certain robot types to participate you can as well make sure the nic reward is balanced to the risk a player takes (heavy bot vs. light bot vs. ewar mech).

signed

It would be of course player defended, probably you could add some base defence with NPCs if one side has lots less pilots. Maybe for each human player self destruct one npc robot. I would somehow balance it through the numbers that are able to join MAXIMUM and a requirement that you need at least a certain number of pilots to conquer an outpost.

Another option in regards to balance could be the allowed robot types. Probably you could offer a mission for each type and can only accept one at a time. Also if let's say 10 people accept for heavy mech, only smaller bot types are left at mission terminal. The teleporter would require you to use the correct robot type. That way you could prevent people from

I would go that far that you can not swap faction whenever you like but require a certain corporation reputation or personal reputation and also prevent working for another corporation if your standing is too high with another faction. The mission is not only for reputation changes but also to pay some NIC. As this can be seen as high risk mission, the gain should not be too bad either.

One more thing:

I like the game pretty much, BUT from logging in to having some action, there can be hours. You might even not get action, though rading some beta island. Also this would allow single players to join PVP at any given time without the need of having loads of people online at the same time in the same corp/alliance. If you have some faction fleet command possibilities in the game, you could make it easier for people to coordinate their attacks.

I like the complex idea, pretty much something that is needed to get more players.

EvE introduced new skills to improve basic skills as well as new skills for new technology.

Example:
Basic Skills: Small hybrid guns, medium hybrid guns (req small lv3), large hybrid guns (req med lv3).
Advanced Skills: Small Railgun Specialisation, Small Blaster Specialisation (requiring small hybrid lv5), Medium Railgun Spec (Req Med Hyb lv5, Small Rail Spec lv4), etc.

Advanced Skill improves dmg for T2 Weapon of same class but ALSO is an requirement to fit it first.

Same goes for ships and stuff. Basicly higher Tier is always better as same item lower tier, so you are eager to get the skills and the items.

Besides that, it is possible to farm faction loot that does not require the T2 level skills but gives almost the same or even better stats than T2.

On the other hand EVE introduced new items and skills for new ship roles as well (Interceptor to catch and lock ships, Jumpships, etc.).

Conclusion: Progres in EVE is being able to fit better stuff and fly better ships. Besides that better skills give an edge over newbies.

One should not forget that EVE introduced T2 Items only more than a year after game start (a s far as I remember). Usually there is a major patch all 6 months in EVE which adds a lot new content. I guess it will be similar in PO, the only trouble is entertaining the poeple until you get the critical mass to drive the economy and to long term motivate people.

Some changes to the Landmark screen would be nice:
1.) Let us have several sets of settings which we can switch to easily (PVP, PVE, Mining, etc.)
2.) Multicolumn list sorting, maybe even groupable sorting, f.e. grouping after distance group 1 up to optimal range, group to up to fall off, group 3 up to targeting range, group 4 further
Of course the groups need to be sorted by range themselves as well :-) Max range needed is targeting and further of course.
3.) Maybe multicolumn layout of the window. Means if you make the window wider but less high and have the last column twice the needed space in width, show the list in two columns.
So first 20 landmarks in left column of the layout and rest in second column, etc.. There would not be a top down scrollbar then, but a left right scrollbar.
@Devs: I think of something like multicolumn list box where you can scroll left right, just having one column being an Item with 5 subcolumns (Image, Name, Type, Distance, etc.). I could sent a screenshot of an example if needed.