Does anyone know if it's possible to do any of the following?
1: Tie hull condition to rate of fire. For example, if a ship is at 50% hull condition, it would fire at a reduced rate.
2: Give all weapons (or maybe specific ones) an effect that has a % chance of temporarily disabling a target's systems when hitting the hull? For example, a ship gets its shilds knocked down and then gets hit by a missile. The missile would have a 5-10% chance of disabling weapons, engines, or jump drive for a few seconds.
3: Randomize (within specified limits) the duration of a beam weapon effect. I think it gets a little visually monotonous when every shot of a beam weapon lasts exactly the same amount of time. Example: a ship would fire a beam that lasted for .5 seconds, then one for .25 seconds, then one for .75 seconds. This would be pretty much entirely a cosmetic thing, for visual variety.