well, one way is to hit the ship with an overwhelming catastrophic explosion.
(like a sunslayer with hull damage set to 250000) They won't have a chance to regen. BUT...I take it that's not what you want.
So, it's trying to regen while it's exploding?
Make sure it's regens are gone first before finishing the kill.
That might mean setting the regen attribute to begin as soon as the the ship starts taking damage...so it will use them up first.

Set up a custom AI for your capships, and set the AI level where it uses the health potion (oops, old DA slang) high enough that it uses them up before death, and set the timer fairly low.

For examples on how to build/work with custom AIs for FL, please download my Toolkit Mod 1.3, which has commented AIs. Among other mysteries of FL explained

I'm sorry, I must not have been clear enough.

The capships are player pilotable. If the player hits the regen button after the death sequence begins it will crash the server.

Ah. Then have the potions ejected immediately during the Fuse event, like this:

[dump_cargo
at_t = 0.00000
origin_hardpoint = HpMount

See fuse.ini in Toolkit 1.3 to see the entire example. I should add that bit to each of the capships, come to think of it... I just have it on the smaller ships.

Hey Argh, that's what "player looting" is all about isn't it?
Good point. Auto eject.

That will dump the cargo. If you want weapons to be lootable, then you need to write up a custom Fuse for each ship, with lines like:

[destroy_hp_attachment
at_t = 0.000000
hardpoint = HpWeapon01
fate = loot

Why for each ship? Because, if FL tries referencing a Hardpoint that doesn't exist on a given CMP, it will crash...

just thought id input a little something here...

is there and way to blow off thoes targetable "components" on cap ship without it automatically killing the ship?

P.S. i found one thats really funny...the NPC liberty cruiser...if you target and kill the forward gun..."rings"...then the ship explodes even though it still has most of its hull left..... anyway..the funny part is that after it explodes...the part that remains if the forward gun "rings"....witch if the thing you killed....so it makes no sense

So, here's the original death_fuse = true for the liberty cruiser

[fuse
name = li_cruiser_body_fuse
lifetime = 5.000000
death_fuse = true

[ignite_fuse
at_t = 0.000000
fuse = li_cruiser_engine2_fuse
fuse_t = 0.000000

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03bigcircles
hardpoint = HpFX01
at_t = 0.000000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03moving_rings
hardpoint = HpFX01
at_t = 0.000000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03moving_rings#1
hardpoint = HpFX01
at_t = 0.000000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03bigflash
hardpoint = hpshield01
at_t = 0.000000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
at_t = 0.200000
effect = explosion_sfx_csx_sectional03
hardpoint = dpengine04
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03bigexplosion
hardpoint = HpFX01
at_t = 0.200000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0

[ignite_fuse
at_t = 0.200000
fuse = li_cruiser_engines_fuse
fuse_t = 0.600000

[start_effect
at_t = 0.300000
effect = explosion_sfx_csx_sectional04
hardpoint = dpengine04
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
at_t = 0.500000
effect = explosion_sfx_csx_sectional05
hardpoint = dpcntrltwr
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
at_t = 0.800000
effect = explosion_sfx_csx_sectional04
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.920000
pos_offset = 0, -20, 40
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.900000
pos_offset = 0, 5, 35
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.910000
pos_offset = -15, 0, 40
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.920000
pos_offset = -15, 0, 40
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.930000
pos_offset = -15, 0, 20
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.940000
pos_offset = 15, 0, 20
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.950000
pos_offset = 0, 5, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.960000
pos_offset = 0, -20, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.970000
pos_offset = -15, 0, -30
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = HpTurret_l5_02
at_t = 0.900000
pos_offset = 15, 0, -30
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[start_effect
effect = gf_li_capexplosion03popper
hardpoint = dpfront
at_t = 0.990000
pos_offset = 0, 0, 0
ori_offset = 0, 0, 0
attached = true

[destroy_group
at_t = 0.990000
group_name = Li_cruiser_nose_lod1
fate = debris

[destroy_root
at_t = 1.000000

All I need to do is add the section

[dump_cargo
at_t = 0.00000
origin_hardpoint = HpMount

into that fuse and that should do it?

I'm guessing this causes the regens to be dumped before the player can hit the regen button.