The cargo a ship can carry should be based on volume, so that carrying 30 of one type of ore is the same as carrying 10 different objects and 20 units of ore.
It doesn’t make any sense that you can have a full inventory with 5 different items, yet also carry a dozen ore in a single slot.
Just make cargo a list of items carried, and the space they take up can depend on the item if not default to 1
The item that expands cargo would increase the space instead, say +50%
I would very much enjoy an inventory system like escape from tarkov in OS. And every ship could have a differently shaped and sized inventory to abuse and such. Drag and drop earranging could be useful as well. (and a trash slot)
With a change like this is would very much increase the size of the average inventory to account for stacking items, and possibly make cargo drones work differently so you can deposit only what you want to deposit.
It is at least better than how it used to be one item per slot and you had to carry fuel as well. I guess they don’t want people to farm up 100 “rare” items, but also realised that one ore piece per slot is next to useless with the amount required to build things