Diversifying Money Making Opportunities And Removing Activity Reliance

[pillow]

I wonder if NPC transports with real stats and real escorts would would be beneficial. It definitely would feel better for a pirate bomber to destroy those escorts and that transport if they posed at least some threat and while they couldn't pick up the cargo they could still get some payout from the plugin. I'd definitely make more pirate bombers if I could simply fly around and make passive money on lanes while also potentially meeting a player.

And about trading, I've always wanted trading to be more dangerous in general. Hauling from A to B wouldn't be so brainless if every once in a while an NPC Barghest dropped your lane and started shooting EMPs and Energy Cannons at you. Depending on the area you could increase the difficulty of these types of NPCs so that they pose more of a threat, meaning you would potentially be required to have a player escort you or something.

Mining would also be improved by a similar system, simply spawning NPCs that are dangerous in asteroid fields that not only give money when you kill them but that also encourage you to do stuff with friends. You could even add friendly NPC patrols that you could stay close to for defense if no player is around to help you out.

Plenty of things you can do with NPCs to improve gameplay and immersion without garbage like NPC gunboat patrols with CDs near Missouri.