I have an idea that vendetta could maybe have some kinda player production e.g. Players get certian amounts of ore and credits to build custom attribute ships weapons mining beams... etc maybe have this at certain grey area stations and have a faction liking of like 1000 or more to be able to build stuff.
Larger scale could be building and owning your own station or capatol ship with smaller ships you could buy to mine ore or to guard miners/station/capatol ship.

Other misc ideas...

Maybe lessen the mineral prospecting mission to like 40-50 or make the end benefits more/better with better mining equipment and ships along the way to 120... Maybe you could make the Maud ship (the mining version) have 2 large rather than 1 and/or have a Behemoth with a small port at the end of the prospecting missions... But in or for anyone to actually have anything to do with mining it needs to be useful/effective (i can make more money doing trading missions than i can mining and faster) so thats why i said have ore as a main part of player production. I would like some kind of option to transfer you ships to other stations without you haveing to actually go and get them maybe have it take 4 mins per system jump to get to the station where your at. I also like to see some hidden asteroid areas free of bots so if you do get a capitol ship or station you wouldnt be under constant attack trying to mine.

I personally like the idea of mining but at the moment its not the most effective way to make money and it seems thats all mining is good for so i present these ideas not only to make over all gameplay more interesting but also to help the mining aspect too.

Oops im sorry i didnt look for an exsisting thread and didnt think about it until just now :D..... sorry