Ship and Weapon changes

I like the idea of captain ratings that effect ship performance, though I would like to see officers, permitting up to two or three modifiers per ship. This would allow for some interesting boosts that you normally see in RPG's from artifacts, runes, or the like.

I am leery of a reactor implementation that would cap weapon output - I feel like that would bring in a level of strategic limitation that hasn't been seen before. While it would increase the depth of the game, it might go too deep for some of the more casual gamers that have so far made the game's audience.

Alternately, a reactor might be simply a module to balance performance. For example, increasing manuevering at the cost of weapon fire rate, or increasing range at the cost of damage, etc. It would still be something that balances to a player's particular style, and various tech levels could still provide straight-up 'better' reactors as gameplay progresses, without a complicated implementation of weapon power generation and consumption on a per-weapon basis.