Is there a possibility to consider changing the capital ship destruction mechanics?
As it stands now, losing a capitalship is big minus, and the benefits of capital rarely outweight the mass of frigs.
The problem lies in the way capitals go pop, and the hulls wanish without trace. Its sad, how ships that rivals a small asteroids in size, disapear so easily ad wanish without a trace.
What i am proposing is that capital, when destroyed, leaves a wreck.
The enemy can recycle/destroy permanetly the wreck, or... you can "Salvage" a wreck with colony frig.
In nutt shell, if enemy kills your capital, but you end up holding the field of battle, you may revive your wreck back to level 1 cap ship and 10%~ of its original hull by bringing new crew with colony frig and paching up the major systems so it can limp back to repair bay.
If enemy end up holding the field, it will recive some sort of prize by getting the metal/crystal from wreck.
This way, fighting the battles with capitals dosent automaticly mean that all is lost we the initial encountter goes something like this: All focus fire on capital > capital dead or jumpped, then kill rest of his fleet.
Holding the field will now mean more, and using capitals in combat wont be fools errand.