How many of you like that when ship is destroyed it first expands in to a fiery sausage, and leaves behind few pieces of junk?
I just loved Starlancer, where the ships leaved behind a burning twisted hulk. Ofcourse we cant do that in FS engine, or can we? As I understand we can define what kind of stuff dying ship leaves behind... So what would it look like when Fenris just breaks in to 2 or 3 big parts. Or Hecate just fades away and stays there, slowly spinning towards the stars...
Ofcourse if Sathanas fires a full barrage at Hecate and it just stays there dead would look goofy. In that case it could blow brightly in to pieces. But not expanding in to a fiery tube.
BOOOM-pot-pot-pot-pot-pot 
Few massive explosions around the model that would break it apart would look cool. But just break it, no expanding tube explosion sequence. And the debris would remain there, floating. Velocity
almost down to zero. Currently the debris speeds away in to space and it feels like the ship has disappeared. I would like it to be apparent that a vessel was destroyed here.
I know some will state that the blast would push the debris away, but who has accused FreeSpace of being realistic? I like debris field more than two pieces of junk speeding at opposing directions...
How about this?
Would it be possible to make the game count inflicted damage
after the ship has died (hull 0%). So that when you torture a cruiser to death with your subach it gives few explosions along the hull and then stays there floating, dead...
But if sufficent damage is inflicted to the ship (like beam or volley of cyclops) the ship says BOOOM! And is cut into 2-4 parts...
Or simply that beams and bombs make big boom. But "laser" weapons leave a dead hulk...
So kinda like Starlancer, only better.
What are your thoughts about this? Would it be hard, or worthwhile to implement?