Simply put, we need more. Lots more! Ships has felt like an afterthought since it was implemented. What needs to happen is another massive dump of ships into the game like when it originally launched, at least 15-20, before anything else can really happen.
The whole capital ship thing really put ships at a disadvantage. Anyone can run a character squad, even characters without leadership abilities. But if you dont have a capital ship you can not attack. So we need at least 2 or 3 more capital ships to go along with new ship additions.
Ship raid would be amazing, but sadly with the current lack of options it would be more like a phase of a raid. Dont get me wrong, I'd love to see that as well. Death star raid with 2 ground phases and 2 ship phases would be awesome.