I've recently started working on a conversion of Warhammer 40k to Starmada, and have found the current Area Effect rules to be insufficient for the variety of area effects encountered in the 41st Millennium.  So, some proposed variants:

Small Area Effect: a small area effect weapon functions as an area effect weapon, except that only effects units in the single target hex, rather than those in the target hex and all those in hexes adjacent to the target.
Cost multiplier: x1.1 to x1.2?  It's only marginally better than a normal weapon, since stacking multiple units in a hex doesn't seem to happen that often.
Useful for: standard blast templates, grenades, "peewee nukes" in regular Starmada

Line Area Effect: a line area effect weapon functions as an area effect weapon, except that only two adjacent hexes to the target hex are effected; the adjacent hex closest to the firing ship and the adjacent hex further from the firing ship.
Cost multiplier: Well, it covers 3/7 of the area of a standard are effect, but multiplying that by 2 for Area Effect yields less than 1, which is unreasonable.  Maybe x1.3?  1.5?
Useful for: flamethrowers in 40k, Traveller-style 'nuclear-powered laser warheads' in standard Starmada