Don't know if this has been brought up or not, but if u got like 1 mission target to destroy before completing the mission but u run out of time before managing to complete this i think it should be possible for you to take a reduced percentage of facour loss with that faction as recogonition of your near completion of the mission.

For example:

I have recieved a ship destroy mission from such and such faction requiring me to destroy 10 of an opposing factions ships with a 10% favour loss incurred with the faction should i fail to complete,

Now, i manage to blast 9 of these suckers in the time given, but can't just get the last one and i end up failing. Rather than taking that full 10% faction loss, maybe a 30% reduction modifier could be applied, reducing the favour loss to 7%. For the pros i know this probably wouldn't be required, but i've found that alliacnes help move the game along a bit faster... and this could help with the learning curve for some peeps rather than them throwing it down and quitting !

P.S: LOVE SINS ! Best RTS i've played in awhile. Now i just gotta get online ><!