Just an idea...
Why not have asteroid's go through systems sometimes and do something?
Would be cool!
How about the ones that are big enough make them to be landed on for miners you could touchdown then open your cargo bay or some other port for the laser, instead of just hovering there shooting your mining laser. Or if we get mining droids have them land a bore into the rock making a visible hole, then collect them when they are finished.
If the rock was small enough no reason why you couldn't clamp onto it somehow and move it, take it to a bigger resource ship for processing, that way your still mining but not cutting bits off you are employed as the finder and collector.
i can think of loads for these space rock, not just something to be dodged while fighting. Although that is awesome lol.