The thought occurred when one of my surveyor's crew member's head exploded after investigating an anomaly. I thought that it'd be a neat little featurette (or what-ever) if the surveyor's crew count would actually go down by one (and if it already does, my bad.)

Then I thought, "What about weapons that target the crew only & leave the ships intact? Sort of like neutron bombs in space." It could lead to some interesting dynamics, especially if the weapons targeted organic life (e.g., Yor-developed weapons). Maybe the Drengin could have something like "raiding skiffs" (branching off carriers), whereby the skiffs don't contribute in combat but clean-up afterwards, hoovering in life pods & survivors to turn into slaves aboard the mothership. Dregnin and the Death Furnaces could maybe use slave count (since there seems to be mechanism for keeping track of colonists & troopers, slaves could maybe be another category of "passengers") to augment their ships' performance (and if really desperate, start feeding the crew to them.)

I love complex games & am happy as clam with micromanagement, so another combat angle doesn't bother me overly.