Expanded Asteroid Exploitation

Although this may change by release, right now all we can do with Asteroids is own them. They're essentially near-worthless eye candy that offer 50 Industry to whatever system's influence happens to cover it. It would be great if races were able to exploit these system further. 

Ideally there would be multiple tiers of exploitation and different methods. For example, asteroids should contain rare materials used in construction i.e. Hyperium or Void Stone. Players would have to excavate or probe to find like with most planets, but would require a specific tech to extract from the asteroids safely. In later tech eras, different races could colonize asteroid fields or use them as highly-efficient shipyards to reduce construction times. Just as a thought, different races could be able to colonize asteroid fields in different tech eras. The Vodyani essentially live in their ships, so they would be the first, followed by high-tech Sophons, etc. They could even be used for random events or criminal activity.

Any other suggestions would be welcome as right now asteroids are rather bland.