Many games have very powerful superweapons or super ships. Examples of super units: Experimental Units from Supreme Titans from Sins of a Solar Empire Leviathans from Sword of the Stars 2 Then you have the super weapons, like nuclear weapons in Command and Conquer. Hero units ... too many to list here. They are usually more powerful that the typical buildable unit, have special powers, and losing them is a big deal. What would you like to see in PSS?
I like the idea of special weapons, units or heroes... if it's done right. One of the criticisms I leveled at PSS is that it doesn't handle specials well at this point as they are so abundant they are not really special. (Probably done only for pre alpha as a way to to get feedback.) I would love to see PSS offer something here that feels really unique and hurts if you lose it. Finding a single derelict cruiser with tech that is not available in the game and can't be researched is one example. The problem is that if there are many of these derelicts in a session or you can reverse engineer the tech... well not much of a special then. Hero units are somewhat easier, you can get creative here and integrate to the existing game. Most heroes could be beneficial but one or two should be really special. (The empire had many leaders but only one Darth Vader) In essence, I totally favor this approach but the Devs must resist the urge to make these type of specials abundant, in my opinion, one of each type of special is enough in a session, if you get one, great, if you don't... things just got more interesting.
Another option is to have hero units after reaching a certain level (ex; like in Fallen Enchantress, Legendary Heroes). As this is a space rather than fantasy game, i"d make the hero an officer that can inhabit a ship and then you can transfer them between ships. They can gain points with combat victories for a tree of abilities that varies based on their hero type. If they die, you can pay a fee to restore them.
