Keeping @NBK 's example, some feedback from my end:
1. Faster respawn timers, I get it was at 15 minutes to prevent people from swarming the Argonaut but if that truely becomes an issue just have it follow the last instruction on regular speed (80/s) until it actually breaks away. People left due to them getting bored and having to catch up.
2. As @Fab mentioned the event would have benefited greatly from a 'respawn ship' on both sides, especially with the route being all over the place.
3. As people mentioned Kepler wasn't exactly ideal, I get that it's between Kusari and Liberty but the narrow paths on top of the confusion of the hackers made it more frustrating than fun, Galileo would have suited better.
4. The hacker ambush was a cool idea, but the execution was bad. Cut down their numbers in half (5 instead of 10 in their group), put them in regular snubs instead. Announce their participation as a mission update to both groups and make them rp taking control of the Argonaut afterwards so people know its legit. Make their unique hook they can hack from longer range (they're hackers after all) and have the argonaut fly off as per point 1 until the hackers are dealt with or break away. This way they have their moment to shine as a plottwist, the ability to steal the argonaut and dont lolslaughter every ship while the players are still trying to figure out why this random faction that isn't in the event is suddenly doing event things.
5. You mentioned an engine stall was planned once the ship was intercepted, which never happened. Just have it stall, it's been adrift in space for god knows how long, it can have engine troubles. (This wouldn't have mattered in the event due to all the confusion and the ensuing fight in Galileo keeping almost all the ships occupied, but with mission updates that might not have happened).
6. Put the jump hole that's specifically made so a side can join the event (Like the one Kusari needed for Earheart in this event) at an extremely hard to miss place like right infront of the Arch' docking point. There were a -lot- of people looking for that.
Honestly though, even with all the proposed changes, positives and negatives of the event, this could have been a lot more fun and clear had there been better (/any) communication, I had to PM the Argonaut with several questions just to understand what was going on, one of which being if the event had even started yet or not. (Much thanks for responding btw! I forwarded the answers to the rest of the group so people knew at least something)
Announce the start;
Announce when the Argonaut jumps systems and to which one (I believe this only happened for Kepler);
Announce plottwists like the hackers attacking;
Announce people can chase after the argonaut for the duration of the event (at least I certainly hope that was the case, the Kusari chat was full of people worried they'd get sanctioned for flying after the event objective once it entered Liberty);
Announce it stalling if there's an engine failure;
Have a clear entrance and exit point for the factions to escort the objective to (and communicate this), Kusari at one point had control of the Argonaut only to realize they had nowhere to go with it.
Lastly you'll always have people that only care about blues and ignore the objective and that definitely happened here, but there would have been more people playing the objective if they had any idea what was going on.
