frozen swallow
I think it could be fun to have a building/ a room, that interacts with the sun. Instead of blocking the particles from the sun, like shields do, the particles would be collected and used to charge this building like a capacitor. While being exposed directly to the sun, there would be orange "sun-capsules" or "sun batteries" produced, as if they were filled with the heat and energy from the sun. This type of ammo is highly explosive but then can be used by a second building, a kind of "heat wave emitter". It could have two modes, a "charging mode", where it only fires when max ammo capacity is reached (maybe directly player triggered?), releasing a massive heatwave that accumulates heat in enemy ship parts over a larger surface area not penetrating deep. The second mode could be a "pulse mode" where it constantly has smaller waves of heat that deal a lot less damage, but fire more rapidly and accumulate heat on one spot that slowly grows lager.
Since this weapon is kind of powerful because it is not easily out-moved, you would need a balance system
I think a new ressource could do that. Ice Crystals that are mined on the very edge of the system are used to cool down the collecting room and the weapon itself. Once you run out of Ice Crystals or the crew can not get the them quick enough to the rooms that need cooling, the rooms a) overheat and explode or b) just turn off completely in a "shutdown protocol"-ish way, also turning off nearby other rooms, having a massive cooldown before rebooting
In my opinion that could be high risk, high reward weapon
you need to gather resources from all over the system (close to the sun, and also on the very outer edge)
And if you manage to sustain efficient cooling and did collect enough sun batteries/ capsules, you can cause massive damage, or risk wasting crew, energy and resources and being vulnerable while rebooting in case of a cooling failure
Let me know what you think
random jackal
rigid horizon
ebon lodge