I suggested capacitors earlier, and while it was rather ill-conceived, I've given it more thought, and would like to put the idea back into the realm of debate.

Capacitor, general concept - The capacitor is something that you can charge from your battery (and regenerates from there), and has a capacity much higher than a battery. You might have a fighter with a capacitor of 2000 units of energy. The concept would be fixed so that it would be extremely hard to recharge a capacitor when in combat. You'd have to fire at the reduced rate of whatever your battery could generate.

Divisions:

Weapon capacitors: You charge these from your batteries before a fight, and not have to worry about your battery fighting. You could have a capacitor of 800 for the Centurion, up to 3500 for heavy fighters (Hornets).

Engine capacitors: These charge up from your battery and can be used for prolonged boosting through large spaces of hazardous sector.

Shield capacitors [groan, I can hear ya'll now]: the Battery feeds energy to a generator that turns the energy into a protective field that is emanated around your craft to block energy weapons (or at least minimize the impact). You can specify through a text field entry or scrolling arrows how much energy/second you want your battery to devote to shields.

Warp capacitors: A small capacitor that charges to 500, which enables for warping without waiting for your battery to fill up.

Special rule: There can be many types of capacitors, but the main difference I am thinking of now are those that are unshielded and are emptied when you warp, and those that have various degrees of shielding, so that only a percentage of your stored energy is removed when you warp (25%, 66%, 75%).

For cargo ships with large batteries/engines/capacitors, shielding would be too expensive, and require ships to stop after warping to charge engine capacitors before boosting through a sector. This creates a vulnerability period that would require the protection of escorts. Another option would be to buy shielded weapons and/or shields capacitors and use them to fend off an enemy while engine capacitors charge up.

Thoughts?

So would a capacitor be automatically discharged when you warp and have to be recharged in the new sector?

Warp capacitors, yes. If your others were unshielded, yes as well. This would prevent warp hopping, as it would leave ships more vulnerable immediately after jumping.

I like the idea, but why would the capacitors charge automatically as default?
I think you chould have to press a buton to divert power into your capacitor.
and another little nitpick, I don't really see the point of classifying ships as "heavies" or "Lights" that was done out in 3.2.0, all ships should have access to all grades of materials, gadgets, and weapons, for a price of performance.

Well, I agree. If you really wanted to, you could put a single plasma cannon on a Valk, and in essence turn it into a "seat with a gun" type of ship. The limiting factor, of course, is mass.

I don't think I said capacitors would charge automatically. I like your idea.

I like the capacitor idea. But here is a hypothetical: What about the charge cannon? Would you be able to charge your capacitor and automatically divert all the power to the cannon to have it fire a fully charged blast at once? Or would it slowly drain from the capacitor? Or would it slowly drain from the battery and leave the capacitor free to use a secondary energy weapon?

I would be hesitant to allow for a first boost, as that would encourage people to find a quiet spot, charge up dual cannons, and blow away everything, since they have enough energy for ~6 blasts (@2800 dmg each).

However, I would be for an decreased charging time when it comes from the capacitor and not the battery. Say, a 3x increase in energy flow.

The charged cannon, however, is inherently flawed, I'll start a thread on that now.