It occurred to me tonight, that it was strange that even with my ship down to 1 percent hull, everything still worked - phasers, torps, shields, engines, everything.
One of the reasons Bridge Commander was so much fun to me was that parts of your ship could get damaged, or even destroyed, complete with hull deformation. Now, STO has the Injury system, but I think it could be more fun if you could get injuries while in a space battle.
Here are my semi-random thoughts and examples. Say you take a critical hit to the hull, be it from a phaser blast, an enemy torpedo, what have you. An injury could occur with severity based on damage actually done:
1. A critical hit that does for 50-100 damage has a chance of causing a minor injury.
2. A hit that does from 101-1000 has a higher chance of causing a minor injury, plus a small chance of a major
3. Crits doing 1k to 2k would have a higher chance of doing a major injury, plus a very small chance of doing a Critical Injury.
4. Crits over 2k or so, you've got a much higher chance of major and critical injuries
5. A single crit of say, 4k or more would basically be guaranteed a Critical injury
6. Critical hits on arcs where the shields are down would obviously have a higher chance of giving an injury.
Anyway, you get the idea. Obviously the numbers could be debated endlessly, taking things like the various hull strengths and etc, but it just make space combat more fun - especially if for example, you're beating up those groups of three BoPs/Frigates in exploration mission, and one of them get a lucky torpedo hit that damages your shield generators and they won't go past 25, 50 percent any more. Changes the dynamic of the battle, wouldn't it?
Heck, what if you could cause injuries yourself on your enemies in the same manner? Might make fighting those battleships on elite more interesting.
Of course, you'd use the in-game components to repair them - perhaps a new ship status box on the HUD where you could click the injury to start the repair. Some factors to consider:
1. All repairs would take time. From less than a second for minor injuries, to much longer for a critical injury - for example, a minute or so, out-of-combat.
2. Skills like Engineering team leader and ship repair consoles could even modify the repair time.
3. Engineering Team cast on you by another ship would obviously speed it up more
4. Your own Eng Team might be busy fixing the gaping holes in the hull, though.

This could even be expanded into a Chief Engineer mechanic.
On a side note, it would be interesting if your ship showed the external damage near where the critical hit was inflicted, instead of just over the whole hull at different hull health levels, but that may be asking for much for the game engine. Still, would add immersion.
Obviously, something like this added would make the game "Harder", and we just had the difficulty slider added in the first place. I can't decide if it would be better to add a "plus" option for the three current difficulty levels (Normal Plus, Advanced Plus, and Elite Plus), giving us six to choose from, or integrating it into the three current difficulty levels (with different degrees of severity, of course), but this would make the game harder for everyone, not just those who chose Advanced or Elite.
That's about all I got - just wanted to get the base idea out there to see what people think. I for one, would probably always keep the Plus mode on.

A similar system for ground combat though... would be hellish, in my opinion.
Comments
It was just too easy to completely fck some ships over by bombing the sensors, for example.
Or romulan warbirds... air for the cannons and you also take out impulse and warp (Thats why you don't put weapons on your drives, EVER)
Aside from that: the whole thing was annoying. ANNOYING.
Because you had to wait for that dumb crew to fix it. and it took ages. it really broke the flow of the game and added nothing.
Subsystems failing, and important ones at that, just because the ship gets shaken around and some new holes IS NOT adding to the fun in realism aspect.
I would think, that a starship of the sizes and technological levels we have in star trek should be able to take quite a lot of punishment before giving up major systems.
I certainly would not sign up for an organization that sends ships into space that flunk out the moment they are coughed at.
Ever heard of redundancy?
Not to mention that having the player grow weaker and weaker over the course of a battle has always proven fatal to gameplay in every game that went with this kind of scheme.
While I do agree with you, your part about the ships taking multiple hits before losing major systems makes me giggle. Did you ever watch the show?
ZAP! ZAP!
"Captain we've lost our warp engines!"
ZAP! ZAP!
"Transporters are down, main power is failing"
ZAP! ZAP!
"Movement controls offline, our shields are at 15%!"
the same show that at one point has the hero ship merrily sail its way through cataclysmic events that shatter non-plot vessels like eggs? The same hero ship that, in the next episode, is shot half dead by some alien we never heard of?
the same ships that in one episode can take damage that peels of their hullplating and still continue to fight and then in the next episode get disabled by one shot?
sorry dude, your argument has been invalidated by the writers whims.
LOl.....consistency has not been one Trek's virtues for sure. If I understood the OP correctly though he proposes damage that like now only has a very minute random effect. In Bridge Commander the damage was directed like Subsystem targeting here (although secondary efects because of the location manifested too).
Lets say you start exhibiting minor damages as % chance (very small) every time your hull drops under 50% or something still means you can take a beating but the damage you take matters. The injuries can stack which increases the time they take to be repaired but outside combat or when engineering team and hazard emmiters are used the timer counts down even faster. Aux can be made useful here by decreasing the timer depending on the power level (and another reason to switch to it).
Anyways just some ideas but I can definetely understand if this adds a layer of complexity there that may be a step further than you would like.
no. it adds nothing fun to the game.
Its just something that eats up time, requiring redundant actions (whytf do i have to do this stuff. i got 800 crewmen slaving off for exactly these things.)
Its like the current DP.
nothing added but annoyance.
gameplay has not changed one tiny bit. it just got more dull since now some people (obviously not me, since npcs's never get past my shields...) have to skim a new menu to apply a fix to their broken system.
great.
so this took like the whole time since cryptic took over the game to basically now to come up with THIS drivel?
Wow.
Its the same with the ops idea.
Adds nothing, does nothing and ultimately yet another reason to stay the fck away from the game.
If you people like this kind if thing i have a suggestion:
Find a nice, tidy and clean wall. Then bang your Head against it, forehead first, repeatedly.
It is a repetitive, stupid and totally useless thing - very much like the ops idea - but you will at least not pay $15 for it.
It wouldn't "Add nothing" - it would add, imho, a little more immersion, and possible breaks from the occasional monotony of spamming the space bar and clicking on the occasional cooldown.
Bloody hell, they could make it "optional" just like the DP.
I would welcome some more dynamic space combats, complete with the feel of having to protect a weakened section of your ship.
As long as components aren't permanently destroyed, then I don't have a problem with this.