Alright here's the basics of this post idea:

-EM, Therm, Kinetic, Exp all would have small secondary effects whose effectiveness and frequency occur on a very small percentage of hits, say 1-3% for standard t1 with more on t2 and faction. This would function as a 'critical' hit, and there would certain in-game things like implants that would increase it, as well as pirate faction weapons doing more.

-These would stack proportionately to negate the issue with giant numbers of people doing continuous crit damage, so each additional player doing damage would have a 5-10% decreased effectiveness of critical hits to compensate.

-Each race would have a small resistance to its enemy's crit type in the same way t1 armor resist profiles are set up.

-The chance one damage type has to deal crit over the other is split proportionately to the damage type of the ammunition. Hybrid weapons that deal equal parts kinetic and therm would have equal chances for kinetic or thermal critical hits occuring, and half that of what a missile would do. Odd-numbered damage amounts with projectiles or lasers to an extent, would follow the same formula.

-EM has a chance to temporarily knock down your sensor strength a tiny bit, with the base sensor strength itself and targeting range and lock speed for a few seconds. This would apply well with what EMP does in real life, and would add an interesting little gameplay flavor for ships that use it without causing major disruptions in combat.

-Thermal would apply a small amount of heat damage to a random module on the enemy's ship, detailing a successful 'hit' on a weapon or upgrade module that heats up or partially melts a component.

-Kinetic would have the chance to deal extra overall damage for a well-placed strike on a relatively more vulnerable part of the ship. This would follow with hitting a part of the shield field strength that has fluctuated at that particular time and place to be less strong, a kink in the armor, etc.

-Explosive would have the chance to deal additional hull damage through armor and shielding for a well-placed explosion compromising hull integrity. The extra damage would be proportional to the initial alpha strike, and fall in line with major sci-fi lore in spaceship combat, where even when shields were up, the people on the bridge would still be rocked around violently with a console blowing up in flames or something. Can't tell me that doesn't cause some kind of structural damage...


These crit chances would have a very low probability to compensate for being attacked by larger numbers, but specific things like faction weapons, faction ammo, and new implants and skills would be able to increase that slightly. I think this would add more flavor to pvp and help faction weapons out a bit, and add some more fun variables in combat in this game, considering how stale the actual combat mechanics in this game are in relation to things like 'manual' piloting and other factors that go into pvp.

EDIT: The EFFECTIVENESS of each critical hit does NOT increase with the amount of typed damage being done. A battleship will still do the same amount of secondary effects as a frigate. You can't have someone hit with a thermal crit and burn out all the other guy's modules, or an explosive arty crit alpha'ing right through to the hull.