I think it'd be nice to be able to raise the wealth cap, either via tech or via settings. It'd be fun to roleplay as a vast empire with an enormous debt but huge reserves, having a decade-spanning long economic panic - and I think it might've been mentioned as something that was planned to change back in the C# patch notes (I'd link but I'm stuck on mobile at the moment).

This is not really true. Analysis done by many folks here has shown that heavy armor is generally a less efficient use of BP than light armor/infantry and will end up suffering higher loss rates (in BP) than the lighter units. This doesn't make heavy armor useless at all, as it remains useful in tonnage-bottlenecked situations, but to say that the current model favors heavy armor is not correct.

Yes, your right. That conclusion was filtered through an assumed tonnage limit as almost always the main practical limit for my invasions in in how much invasion tonnage I can bring.

And I did not mean the specific unit type heavy armor, but all units with heavier armour than infantry (so including also stuff like powered INF armour).

Ground Commander tactical effects the Hit Chance of STO weapons under command AFAIK. It has no effect on ground combat

While playing Aurora, making notes to not forget about what could be improved.
Few simple suggestions for UI:

1) Economics >> Industry
- add "Construction Rate" per factory indicator, along with "Construction Capacity"; currently only way to check it is to open Race Information, which is in different window

2) Economics >> Shipyards
- it seems, upgrading SY requires some minerals along with wealth, so it would be super handy to have this information in additional columns, for example

3) Economics >> Research
- add "Research Rate" per lab; currently only way to check it is to open Race Information

4) Economics >> GU Training
- add information about minerals cost for training Ground Forces, currently it is only "BP cost" column
- add "Ground Formation Construction Rate" indicator, currently it is in Race Information

5) Ground Forces >> Formation Templates
- for Show/Hide Obsolete models - make obsolete ones visually distinctive from current ones, by changing font colour (white=>gray, for example)

6) Events
- same as for show/hide obsolete models, make filtered events visually distinctive in some way (rarely needed, but I recently misclicked button in Events window and hide certain type of event for many years until I figured something is wrong, well:))

Also worth noting that having it so that fighters being unable to be directly fired upon when stationed on a planet (since, as per game mechanics, ships under 500 tons disregard the gravity constraints of other trans-Newtonian craft and can land on system bodies) has an extra benefit: it makes it so that you can't bypass an enemy system as easily by simply neutralizing its present navy. What I mean by this is that, unless I'm mistaken, presently with how the game works if you destroy all enemy crafts in a system that you can then proceed onward to other systems without dealing with any colonies of theirs still present.

However, if you can't directly fire on fighters present on a planet, then it's possible that any colony could have potentially innumerable fighters (and build even more) that they can deploy against any enemy forces and then retreat back to the host planet where they have both the benefit of STO fire covering their retreat, and not being able to be targeted effectively at a range by guns that outrange the STO weapons.

In other words, it makes it so that a sufficiently-reinforced colony with plenty of fighters and STOs can force a threat to need to mount a full-scale planetary invasion of that colony (or otherwise destroy it) strictly in order to continue their broader invasion of an empire unimpeded. That is to say, colonies gain a greater capacity for system-wide deterrence in the event of a full-scale war rather than simply being able to defend themselves.