I personally did look through the model, did see the glass etc.such a structure on a combat/frontline vessel seems to me a bit something that gets blown away immediately,after shields go off. I mean, in case it isnt shut off of the whole ship, if glass breaks, whatever is contained there, whatever it might be might be of no use.
Its armament is ultra lackluster, I thought TEC might want to add a very heavy auto/cannon turret.bigger than harcka 
225-275 pen with slow RoF, low DpS, but at least something to scratch heavy cruisers a bit. Instead of that glassy structure. You could put that ultra heavy autocannons or whatever it is, that I made up, consider perhaps using this instead of medium autocannons on some of the ships.
What came to mind, was also something - a ship item that turns your turrets into 'higher tier'. Kol, for example with marza/ragnar, can use the 100% dmg on the gauss turrets.
You could have a capship refit, that deals more dps with lower pen, removing big turrets, while giving high dps good enough for countering heavy cruiser type threats. Super-Heavy autocannon that does shoot regularly, but is in range of 400 pen. Removing 600 of gauss. Perhaps additional weapon station, say PD, while upgrading light autoguns to medium and medium ones to the heavy ones, that harcka uses. Removing 200 pen vs capships is a 50% dps nerf (500 durability, 400 pen = 50% dps) losing out heavy shells for gauss guns is also almost double dps nerf of its current primary weaponry. (600 pen deals full vs 500 durability of capitals, 2x dmg from upgrade is significant, losing that potential ? serious nerf vs current build vs cap ships, so trade off should be worthwhile)
Since autocannons arent using gauss guns, the ship/s undergoing such a downgrade/repurposing could get either antimatter/shield buff, as well as a range nerf for its main weaponry. Having this an item upgrade/downgrade and be removable by removing it from inventory should not be really instant, because you would be significantly changing the counters your ship does immediately, so, as there is install timers, uninstall/retrofit of such kind should not be instant.
Very similar things can be currently done with expensive items that you throw away when your capship is visibly going down. Same for starbase, planet items already installed.
Starbase could refit also with uptiered basic weaponry - whether it should be an item, or vone via research, not sure, but those 150 pen guns arent doing all that much.
Granted, dps of 3 cobalts, vs 1 harcka is very barely in favor of harcka when countering capships (difference being like 2,5% or so, 14 vs 15 supply)
You could also wonder, why build cobalts in the first place, when there are better options. Why cant it get a single harcka gun or bigger. Cobalt mk.2 
Harcka Mk.2 getting bigger guns too.
All those numbers ought to be properly calculated and tried out.
Kortovases, going from medium to heavies etc.
I was also wondering, if there will be differences in coloring of projectiles, their intensity, based on research tier.
These are pretty general ideas, so things like these could help earlier game units with some updates in Tier IV-V, to signify that there is some actual progress done.
Or to bring in some, at first old models that look similar to units from SoaSE:R, and end up with the new. Cap ships most of them do retain their old form at least.
