Or maybe there could be a configuration option that dictates whether to spawn debris or not, and if so, how much. Something much like what the Deltaglider-IV has. Of course, this is only assuming a generic debris vessel.
If you wanted something simpler, you could try what Sputnik's Uragan does, which is to use dozens of small double-sided simple polygons instead of complex polyhedrons. It has very little impact on framerate, even with 50+ debris objects on-screen.
Even if there is an external way of turning debris on and off, we'd still need a dynamic way. The performance of autopilots degrades when you lower FPS. While I haven't tested the autopilot at low performance, I wouldn't want the FPS to drop below 30 or 40 FPS at any time, if at all possible.
I'm not so worried about the mesh itself. We can do that low poly. My problem is that any vessel, even if it's just sitting there, is draining CPU. If FPS is already low, we don't wanna spawn an additional 50 objects for fancy looks.
We'll see what the details will be like.
Have you found any bugs? I find it unlikely that our software has no bugs...