I think it would be beneficial to have some sort of way to “test” a ship’s combat systems outside of encounters with enemies. An ability to shoot weapons into space and marking your empire’s own ships as targets. Maybe, there could be some other types of targets that wouldn’t have to be your own active ships.
It would be a good addition for new players because it can take quite a long time into a campaign before encountering enemies and this would make it possible to try out the controls first.
This addition could also be useful from a RP perspective. Real world’s navy ships take part in exercises etc. before being used in actual operations.
SJW: Its already in the game
Aurora v2.2.0 Patch Notes - November 26th 2023 - #22 by AuroraSteve