As I mentioned earlier when we were discussing this, might be a cool idea to have 1 race. With a few classes of Kill ships, 1 EMP type, 1 SK, 1 Pod type etc..
Making everyone on the same ground and footing, abit like old school PA.
XP could be removed etc..
I am not very good at all this combat stuff, I still havn't got to grips with the coder type stuff
but its an idea to consider.
I also agree allowing the smaller countries to band up together is a good idea to help them compete viably with the larger ones.
As for the endurance race, I think that could be very intresting indeed