For starfighters: add a number of setbacks equal to Piloting+ 1/2 handling (rounding up), in addition to shields. if you have more than five setbacks, start adding difficulty dice instead.

For shields, this is what I do: shields become kind of an opposed check: you have 'regular (green)' and 'capital(yellow)' shield dice: you roll a number of dice equal to the shield value in that area, and each success cancels one point of damage. triumphs either raise the crit value of the weapon by one for that attack, OR they reduce the weapon's breech quality by 2 per triumph (if it has one). After this, armor applies as normal.

For ALL ships: Increase HT by a percentage equal to 20+(10*silhouette), and increase SS by a percentage equal to 15+(8*silhouette). In all cases round up to the nearest point.

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(Handling + Piloting)/2 = Setback Dice. Defensive Driving adds 1 straight up as well instead of to "defense"

Every Speed Bracket (see movement 'costs') difference makes your effective silhouette one smaller when fired at by a slower ship.

Shield Rating x 1+Massive (if any) = Temp HP/Round.

HT/SS are not increased, but shields absorb a shred of either, and at 0 important vessels go to the critical tables. Since every hit is now a crit, advantages, triumphs, etc become exceedingly dangerous. But you're not out of the fight automatically and not in need of a week in drydock.

Plus, setting attack difficulty to the target's speed so there's actually an advantage to going fast.

Then if you make Evasive Maneuvers upgrade difficulty 1 time per rank of Piloting, to a maximum of the Ship's handling, suddenly Gain the Advantage becomes worth spending an action on.