This is just an idea I had: add electronic warfare to Freelancer. This is things like combat viruses, firewalls, antiviruses, radiological (I think that's the right word) countermeasures, i.e. missile toppling, and the like.
I see it working something like this: viruses act as a sort of "debuff" on enemy ships. For example, you may upload a virus into an enemy spacecraft and all of a sudden his shield systems go nuts, flickering on and off, and eating up shield batteries, or else depolarizing their hull plating lowering their maximum armor. Or a virus that screws up your sensors, randomizing your target (like in the nebula in Freespace 2).Or even something that marks the target for your missiles as you.
Firewalls, of course, would determine whether or not a virus can affect your ship, and antivirus software would determine how long the debuffing effect would last. Who knows, you may even be able to convince Norton or McAfee to endorse you.
By the way, for those of you who haven't seen Dr. No, "toppling" is when you fire a high-energy radio beam at the tip of a missile, causing the nav systems to fizzle and throwing the missile (or rocket ship, as in Dr. No), to go wildly off course.
Just wanted to throw the idea out there.