RE: ships, I really think you should be able to salvage spoils from destroyed enemies. I don't think Marines would refit xeno scum ships for their own usage, but acquiring requisition relative to your available Techmarines might be okay. Of course, it bring the problem of rewarding success and punishing failure around again. Maybe fighting valiantly against impossible odds and dying should bring some recognition and reward.
RE: heresy, I wants it, either going rogue or full-blown kAoS. Imperial punishments go from 100 to 0 though, either they wage war against you or are buddies. Inquisition should declare you penitents within the game too or require something else, instead of right away declaring war. Unless you really do something extra bad.
When boarding is finally implemented you'll be able to set one of several goals for boarding parties. One of them is capturing enemy vessels- when/if you manage to capture one you'll then have the option to either salvage the hell out of it or try and man the thing. I'm also planning on having an Inquisition audience when your loyalty goes too low, where they give the option of a penitent crusade.
Priority number one is improving stability, especially since 0.6537. If this patch looks like it's fixed a lot of that I might add in more new stuff.
0.6538Major Changes:
None.
Other Changes:
There are now only 5 Imperial Battlefleets, subject to more tuning.
Under-construction ships no longer appear as fractions under the initial battle report.
Daemon Worlds may no longer be taken back by the Imperial Guard.
Daemon Worlds are no longer colonized.
The Salamanders and Iron Hands battlecries have been fixed, finally.
Perils of the warp may once more transform psykers into Greater Daemons of Khorne.
Within Unit Role settings, the 'Gear' and 'Mobility' item lists are now correctly named.
You may no longer assign Mobility items to unit roles that are assigned Terminator or Dreadnought armor.
Item armor/experience restrictions are now properly applied to items within unit role settings.
Mass Equipping will no longer remove Artifacts already equip.
Chapter Management now displays the correct number of Wolf Priests for Space Wolves.
Relic Blades and Eviscerators now show in the marine display.
Power Fists have been updated and improved in the marine display.
Fixed a bug that was detecting more fleets orbiting stars than there actually were. Most of the recently reported fleet bugs should be gone.
You may no longer equip armor artifacts to xenos hirelings. Other types of artifacts remain unaffected.
If you have Techmarines and Librarians set to be part of the command squad, and they are assigned to a company, they will join that column of marines.