Too much NPCs

[Binski]

And why shouldn't they happen there? What is so intrinsically bad about having a big fight in a planet's orbit? The owners of the planet and their friendlies already have the benefit of being able to dock to escape a blue message. They already know that reinforcements will be able to undock straight away. The pulse weapons flying from stations and docking rings are already a significant advantage. Why do we need super strength NPCs there too? All that does is take the difficult and foolhardy and make them intractable, and at times, even impossible.

Yes big battles should be able to happen there but they are the most populated areas in the world. This is also arguing that human players should be able to go camp Nomad bases without any opposition under the argument it is to promote rp.

As things are, there's no reason for lawful players to patrol, that is, seek targets for interaction, if all of their stations and planets are strongholds. The role of establishing system security that they could be playing is obviated by NPC gunboat patrols with CDs and full-power weapons. High-level VHFs that are able to swarm and overwhelm even well-equipped player vessels. Why bother to go even sweeping the trade lanes when any threats can get sweeped up or scared off by an NPC patrol? Why bother going out to engage anything when you can wait for a distress call and go out to drag the fight to the nearest base for the support of its defenses? These may be "realistic" actions, but they don't produce interesting gameplay.

Yes but the answer the entire time to this was to put in mortal NPC bases for players to protect, that would result in lost territory or access if lost in battle. That would give players on both sides plenty to do, all we needed was a system to work out what is fair or not. But that would give reasons to get out and secure areas, wouldn't it? Imagine if to maintain control of a junction, a house needed to maintain a battleship cap in that area that could be sieged in real time like a POB? The answer was not to pull npc's but add more stuff to do in the game and not be afraid to give it value like territory lost (even temporarily, or with plenty of options for counter attacks/moves).

Furthermore, the role of pirates and terrorists actually being able to antagonize lawful installations is taken away. In the vanilla campaign, we see a flight of Bloodhounds harassing Pueblo, and damaging it severely. Nowadays it's almost considered suicidal (and often OoRP, by some players) for a pirate (in a much better ship than a Bloodhound, mind you) to be anywhere near a lawful-aligned object that isn't just a trade lane ring.

Ah they can't antagonize lawful installations anyways. What can they do? Camp outside safe zones and taunt? That's what is so important to do without NPC's bothering us? One day folks in charge will realize we just needed bases that matter to protect/attack to keep everyone busy. Even if that did happen, we'd still need to deal with npc spawns near populated junctions. Thats the advantage you get from it being home territory. When players are low, they'd come in handy for bases that built in those areas for that very reason.