Ah I see now, it took a bit of reading and re-reading but I think I see how it might work in Orbital Decay - you can include your [stress dice] as if it were a [help dice]. However, if it rolls max. then you suffer a stress effect. So the more stressed you are, the better results you can get on a skill test. It's not stated all that clearly but I think a cool way to then figure out the stress effect would be to reroll the stress dice. Higher results lead to worse outcomes and the bigger your stress dice the more dangerous the roll becomes, including death on a 20.
Yes I'd be keen to see what you could come up with, for example you could drop the die size, giving you less of a bonus on skill rolls and a higher chance of bad happening as the warp turns against you/you run low on energy. Or you could increase the die size but find some way to make the outcomes of a surge more dangerous - either mechanically or simply through narration. Spicy risk/reward trade-offs I always find fun.
And thank you for the clarifications, I get what you mean with Rending now - a powerful force to put in the players' hands! If I get a chance I'll come back here with a quick play report for sure :)