Thanks for the responses, and thanks too to Commander McLane for the extra links. I take the point about game balance... but if the cooling device was written as an OXP, along the lines of the Ore Processor, then would NPCs have access to it if the player hadn't installed it? If I, as a fresh young 100-credit Jameson, install multiple OXPs containing various uber-ships which I can't yet afford, I'd have nobody to blame but myself when I find myself repeatedly beaten up by pirates cruising around in the Four Tigers of the Apocalypse. In short, one shouldn't install the OXP until one is prepared to live (or die) with the consequences. Or am I making some sort of huge error in my assumptions about how this would work?
On Killer Wolf's comments about dogfighting, I tend to agree -- especially with regard to the Energy Bomb. I'm not above using it, but I always feel a tiny pang of guilt when I do. Not enough to not do it again, but... slightly soiled, at any rate. I feel I've let myself down.
Mind you, what about a slightly toned-down Energy Bomb? One that didn't damage ships, just scrambled their circuits for (X) seconds? i.e. turned their AIs to mush for a short while, allowing the player to make a run for it, manouevre for an attack run, etc.? An Ion Bomb, maybe. How would this work for the NPCs, though? Would it be possible for an NPC to let one of these off, scrambling player control for, say, 10 seconds? Do NPCs ever let off Energy Bombs that effect players? I'm sure I've seen a bunch of pirates popped by an NPC Energy Bomb, but even though I was in the area, I didn't notice any effect on me. Of course, in the throes of a marathon session I have been known to hallucinate...