The option which allows you to brighten your ships' hulls could use a little work, imho.  With it turned off, it is nigh-impossible to see your ships on a dark background - not necessarily a bad thing.  With it turned on, your ships are bright, but maybe a little too bright I think.  Also, it really washes out the ship textures, they look way better with the option turned off.
I don't know exactly what method is being used to brighten the hulls, but I think it would be worth looking into using a different method.  If currently it's just a "brightness" filter being boosted, try increasing gamma instead.  Or if gamma's already being adjusted, maybe increase the texture contrast in addition to the gamma - ships will still be brighter, but the texture and mesh detail won't be lost.  It would look something like an image in Photoshop with the "levels" narrowed, rather than just a +25% to brightness.