I would like it to be a bit easier to get licenses for differant weapons/ships.

No, sorry. Work as the rest of the game's population has.

Easier? Come on mate you need to put some effort in.

It is reasonably easy to get low level licenses. A skilled pilot can get 3/3/-/-/- in about an hour, doing just the combat mission, and this is all that is required for a vulture mkIII, neutron blasters, and a heavy power cell. This combination of equipment is a serious fighter ship, and deadly in the hands of a skilled pilot. Without the skills as a pilot, the levels, ships, and equipment are of little value. The combat missions are a good way to start learning these skills, and the levels become somewhat unimportant.

You'll hear people talk about "twitch skill". The bottom line is that there is so much technique and skill involved in combat in this game, you'll find having more equipment only makes things more difficult. When you have lots of possible tools and configurations, chances are that you will be less skilled in using any particular one. Forget the experimenting for now, and get more practice handling your current configuration.

...there's a Bus Killer badge for a reason...

It'd be REALLY nice if it didn't take 3390823423 days (gross exaggeration, but close!) to raise your heavy weapon skill to the level where you can get something that's not the crappiest missile in the game... I found it incredibly easy to raise my level from plasma devastator to the next level, just because it hits the enemy... Please, a noob weapon that shoots straight! (and deals damage too)

Just my thought on the crap-launcher that noobs are forced to use when training heavy weapons to 1 (shouldn't it do crap-loads more damage, being a heavy port with no tracking[rhetorical]?)

What about significantly lowering the level reqs on the gat cannon?
Or possibly a lower velocity version of the gatling cannon available right off like the sting ray.

What about buying a HQ Gat and equipping it at Level 0 :P

Did anyone hear what I JUST said?

Get good at a certain configuration before you move on to the next one. And why the heck are we complaining about challenges in a game where people are begging for more depth and playability?