Space Cruisers

[Frank_Stein]

My suggestion would be having multiple planets you could warp to upon discovering their coordinates via the telescope, telescience, or mainframes on existing telescience locations, imaging warping to a location to find multiple pods facing you and all ready to kill you

I like this. A
lot. You could even tie in the current telsci locations directly by allowing the cruiser to beam them to the pad and back once you're close enough to the location.

Both of these. How about a Star Control style thing where the cruiser flys around in space, with tiles representing the telescience locations seen from a distance. Fly next to them, and be in range to beam people to and from the locations.