Now before you start saying that we dont want npc shopkeepers or anything that one would first think of when they hear "npc", i do agree with you
This is more of a game suggestion, but also as a way to show that we could have npc and have other gameplay loops and ways to generate ressources.
I do think most of us dont want AI fighter ships flying around eve online style, it wouldnt work in this game, but we do have capital ships.
Heres my idea, a derelict capital ship that warps into our belt and stays there for a while until it warps away or somewhere else in the belt. It would attack ships that pass nearby. It wouldnt have a safe zone and it can be destroyed by any means. Their size would vary as well and their firing power and resistance (how derelict they are, premade holes/missing parts and thickness of their armor), there could also be differant types using differant weaponry, encouraging bringing different ships. There could be a few around the belt at the same time spawning somewhat randomly in the "deep" part of belt.
Now, what would be the point of fighting one of them? Once you can approach them (either you destroyer all its weapons or it looks like swiss cheese) there could be a hangar (aka a vault) containing lots of stuff and you could dismantle the ship itself for parts.
What could the vault contain? Well first off let's see how much loot there could be. That would vary on the size of the ship, the firepower and resistance of it wouldn't (i'll explain later). Now to what it can contain (this is all ideas so don't take too much attention to these), it could range from straight up raw ressources to some prebuilt ships even, whatever you want to be honest but that would be mostly up to the devs and what would be balanced.
I do think this idea has lot more depth than at first sights,
1- It's up to you and your faction to decide if it's worth engaging since the difficulty does not directly correlate with its size (aka loot)
2- It creates information wars, aka, if you hear that theres a cap ship near another faction, you know that they wont be as strong as they usually are if they are engaging it
Heres another idea of mine that cap ships would bring nicely, basically the derelelict cap ship vault could contain special ship modules that have buffed stats (and debuff if the buffed stats are too strong), this would create a special market for these kind of items, it would create a reason to loot destroyed ships and/or hunt them and the most important of all, it would allow for more ship designs that are adapted to the special modules they have. What i mean by module could range from a part of a thruster, the whole thruster, a generater, a weapon etc
But that is just an idea to show how derelict cap ship can be implemented and what they could bring
tl:dr derelict capital ships that are basically "raids" for a group, faction or even could be for the community
This is more of a game suggestion, but also as a way to show that we could have npc and have other gameplay loops and ways to generate ressources.
I do think most of us dont want AI fighter ships flying around eve online style, it wouldnt work in this game, but we do have capital ships.
Heres my idea, a derelict capital ship that warps into our belt and stays there for a while until it warps away or somewhere else in the belt. It would attack ships that pass nearby. It wouldnt have a safe zone and it can be destroyed by any means. Their size would vary as well and their firing power and resistance (how derelict they are, premade holes/missing parts and thickness of their armor), there could also be differant types using differant weaponry, encouraging bringing different ships. There could be a few around the belt at the same time spawning somewhat randomly in the "deep" part of belt.
Now, what would be the point of fighting one of them? Once you can approach them (either you destroyer all its weapons or it looks like swiss cheese) there could be a hangar (aka a vault) containing lots of stuff and you could dismantle the ship itself for parts.
What could the vault contain? Well first off let's see how much loot there could be. That would vary on the size of the ship, the firepower and resistance of it wouldn't (i'll explain later). Now to what it can contain (this is all ideas so don't take too much attention to these), it could range from straight up raw ressources to some prebuilt ships even, whatever you want to be honest but that would be mostly up to the devs and what would be balanced.
I do think this idea has lot more depth than at first sights,
1- It's up to you and your faction to decide if it's worth engaging since the difficulty does not directly correlate with its size (aka loot)
2- It creates information wars, aka, if you hear that theres a cap ship near another faction, you know that they wont be as strong as they usually are if they are engaging it
Heres another idea of mine that cap ships would bring nicely, basically the derelelict cap ship vault could contain special ship modules that have buffed stats (and debuff if the buffed stats are too strong), this would create a special market for these kind of items, it would create a reason to loot destroyed ships and/or hunt them and the most important of all, it would allow for more ship designs that are adapted to the special modules they have. What i mean by module could range from a part of a thruster, the whole thruster, a generater, a weapon etc
But that is just an idea to show how derelict cap ship can be implemented and what they could bring
tl:dr derelict capital ships that are basically "raids" for a group, faction or even could be for the community