One thing I noticed in a obscure game called HardWar, when your hull integrity would go down, your actual interface would start looking as if it'd taken damage. The HUD would flicker after a particularly bad hit, any instrument panels would show cracks, the glass that the HUD was projected on would crack and sometimes shatter, and so on....Really added a lot to the game, more of an immersive feeling. Possible to do with the current setup?

hmmmm, well since the HUD we use is not placed on an inturment panel the cracked glass and such is probably out. However, I doubt it would be overly difficult to have radars, speed/battery indicators, target display information and the like flicker in and out depending on how much damage you have taken. Personally I've always felt that after a certain amount of damage to your ship the Autoaim should have a chance to fail.

Yeah, that way the people with energy weaposn will be at an even bigger disadvantage to flare users. GREAT idea.

I dont know about you rogue, but i actually find that most of the energy weapons work better without the autoaim once you are within 150M

Obviously the Gauss and AGT are exceptions to that rule, however it DOES add a bit of realism to the game. Besides, I dont know where you have been, but i havent seen very many Flare users in the new universe. Without a station in every sector, Ammo based weapons now require a fair amount of skill to use succesfully.

In Metroid prime you get static on your HUD when you get hit. I like that a lot more than the red screen we get now. It's not total static, the image just gets fuzzy for a second.
Permanent damage to the glass would just be annoying though.

A static or fuzziness that goes across the screen when it would be good to replace the current red flash.

As you get more damaged it would be cool to have some of the things flash in and out. Like the distance meter or radar. I don't think making the auto aim flicker would go over too well. It would not create many advantages or disadvantes, but it would be as annoying as he**

Energy weapons in HardWar were devastating to the electronic subsystems of your moth (fighter). This could be a good way to balance the flare/energy issue by causing more HUD/CPU damage from energy weapons than explosives. Makes more sense too.

perhaps it as well as fuzzyness energy weapons could cause some systems to completly die or display inacurate data. (think radar failure or suddenly filling up the radar with dozens of red dots)

...this is Vendetta, not Eternal Darkness :p

And the sound could be different too, the engine would sound different, you would hear gas leaking from your ship, stuff like that.