ok i had an idea for the anmar (more specificly my customised version of the one with the old colors)
How it works and the effects:
1. You activate the ability and it will start an animation (might be possible to make with the new codings)
2. The animation will start pulling in parts of the ship that is not directly connected to the ship (connected with beams or whatever)
3. The animation will work as a charge up beacuse when all the parts have been pulled into the hull it will either give a massive boost (like the hegemony capital ship) or it will give the ship a good boost in speed but lower it's turning speed
4. It will either be an ability that can last for a certain amount of time or it will be one that can be turned on and off at a cost.
There are two major problems with such animation:
1. you can`t animate ship border polygon and weapon/engine placements.
2. damage sprites (crack, flashes) will not apply correctly (or apply at all) to any animated stuff. So your ship`s husk will end up with all original sprite covered in cracks and wings being just greyed out breaking those cracks in some places.
On a side note - the first problem might be averted by some heavy scripting involving manual coordinates movement. API seems to contain weapon/engine coordinates and polygon parameters. But manual positioning frame by frame might be problematic.