I have been playing this game for a little while now, long enough to learn that NPC Battleship and cruiser patrols do squat against anything save other NPCs, which kinda defeat the purpose of having them. So here is a few changes I'd like to see to make them a real deterrent.
1. Vanilla style heavy and multi barrel turrets.
This would be the simplest way to enhance them, just give them a load out that fits the ship the best. ex. All battleship load outs reflect there stationary counterparts, Rheiland and Liberty cruisers to reflect there SP campaign counterparts and everything else what fits best on the weapon slot.
2. More escort fighters.
Doesn't it seem a little odd that a massive and expensive Battleship has only two fighters escorting it? Double the fighters for the Cruiser patrols and triple it for the Battleship patrols.
3. AI
I've look at the ships behaviour and it seems that anything larger than a freighter runs on a transports AI, which the programmers never intended to be much of a threat. I'm pretty sure a freighters AI would work work better for gunboats and maybe even the cruisers so they could break formation and peruse the enemy, battleships are to big to be able to run on any AI other than the one they have. Of course this would be difficult and have to be tested to make sure they weren't bugged.
4. New locations.
Now, I haven't been outside of Rheinland much, but I do believe that in the Corsair and Outcast home systems they have no battleship patrols? It might be a nice addition to add them there to discourage certain undesirables from camping the planets.
I would love to see at least one of these thing implemented.
