Making space battles more interesting

[Pegasus]

On a vanilla mod, is there an obvious way to make battles interesting?

For me (this may say more about me) battles usually comes down to creating the biggest possible fleet and giving the "Charge" command and hoping the enemy retreat.

I was thinking if you x2 or x4 all ships' shield strengths at least it would obviate the use of a devastating first strike.

I like the idea of having 8 out of 10 ships limping out of a lost battle and being patched up to go again.

[Iceman]

Shields?
Maybe Hull would be more fitting for this objective?
(And "disable" some weapons according to hull damage taken?)