[Sir Mordred]

i agree with furball.

leave the prelaunch options as they are now, as they're an advantage for the less active players / alliances, and are not too much of a disadvantage for the hyperactives. If you more or less limit the game to the hardcore gamers by narrowing the prelaunch timeframe, we'll propably quickly lose the nubs/less active ones and the impact of the 'smaller' (read: less active alliances) on the gameflow will again come close to 0 (as it was before). i am pretty sure that such a development will prevent you from meeting your objectives regarding the number of players you want to have in the future.
as a side effect, the harcore gamers wont find much to feed their roidhungry pods with, leaving them frustrated pilots travelling through the ever shrinking universe on a quest for precious, rare roids that (after a few hundred ticks) are mostly owned by the top alliances, which will again make some frustrated players quitting pa.

worst case scenario? certainly, but to some extend predictable. are you willing to risk it?

activity is an internal issue of the alliances, and they're very well capable of defining their requirements, monitoring their members and to take disciplinary action if required, so there's no need for any hardcoded features to 'enhance activity', i.e. limiting the game to the hyperactives.
you should rather see how you could make the game attractive to the less actives and n00bs. the hardcore players/alliances will always rule the universe, i got no doubt there. the trick is to make *the others* have some fun despite the fact that they won't win the round.