I hope you are not offended from my posts, as some posters suggested here. I am interested what do you think about the proposal from Venatos few pages ago, where the CR will lower the speed of the ship, aiming and maybe some other things, but will not go as far in the area of malfunction of system or blowing parts of ship health. That way when CR hits the low, the ship will be a lot slower, and so not able to kit anymore, but it will not be a hard limit where things start to go wrong with all system shutting down
(If we're being honest, I was a little bit, but I understand that things can get heated, and appreciate you saying this. So, no worries.)
About Venatos' idea: yeah, I saw that. My thought on it is that I actually really *like* how these malfunctions play out, and they also serve as a clear visual indicator that things are going wrong, which is particularly important if this is happening to a ship other than your flagship.
Consider that in a previous version, low-CR ships couldn't be deployed at all. The current system, where things eventually get really, really bad, is meant to provide a range of options there instead of a hard boundary - you can decide how much risk you're willing to take, and when to bail out. It also makes last-stand type fights more dramatic than simple stat changes.
Basically, the idea is that a ship at 0 CR is not something you can rely on for any length of time. You might get one last thing done with it, or you might not. If they're reliable (even if poor) performers, then it undermines the whole CR system. You'd end up encouraging the player to fight "free" battles with swarms of 0-CR ships against weak opponents. (With that in mind, one of the goals of the hull damage from critical malfunctions is to make sure it's very much not free outside of combat.)
I will say that the complexity of the rules around "peak performance" ticking down is bothering me, though.
Also there was nice idea somewhere during discusion about adding one more Dmg. Type - Beam Dmg. I must say that it would be awesome to have it! It would help to claryfy things better. I know which weapon is beam and which is not - You know it as well... But it is knowledge obtained by actually using those weapons rather than making "quick glance" at it's statisticks and picture representing dmg. type. If Alex would suddenly brought 100 new weapons and 20 of them would be beam weapons, we would have no idea which are those really without trying them first (good we could do so in simulation) or reading description and hoping info will be there. So I think that this idea of adding representation for another Dmg. Type is good idea.
Hmm. One issue there is something like the Graviton Beam, which is a beam but does kinetic damage. Still, something to think about.
Ehh... I have headache and don't feel too good so I just hope my post was well organized, presented my point of view in rational, well explained and polite way and most of all - just made sense. Can't wait (actually I CAN wait but... You know, just saying) to try game with those new changes to "solidyfy" my own opinion.
EDIT: WHY? WHY?! WHY?!!! Why had I forgot to add that Question Mark there? It is so troublesome to edit posts just for this... I like to exagerrate small things sometimes This was time like that. But lack of question mark where it should be is irritating me. Even more when it happens in MY OWN POST! >.<
Yeah, it made sense, but it still sounds like you need need to get some rest
Feel better!