Rather than make several topics at once, I’ll stick all these small to fairly small ideas here. :)
Hyperspace Gates
In one of David’s wonderful illustrations there is a hyperspace gate. Many jump points are very conveniently located next to important planets, such as Jangala. Wouldn’t it make sense, then, that these jump points are actually Domain-era hyperspace gates? I think it would be really cool if hyperspace gates were depicted in-game in place of at least some jump points.
More Fringe Jump Points
I toyed with suggesting the idea of a “hyperspace limit” around a solar system instead of fringe jump points, but I couldn’t think of a way for it to work well with dropping in on stars. Instead, why not have four or more jump points arrayed around the edges of each system. It cuts down on both player and AI fleets trekking from one side of a system to the other because they used or want to use a fringe jump point.
Tarsus Up-armament
A Tarsus with even a green crew can hold out against a Standard Lasher until its CR runs out, if it has autocannons instead of light machine guns in its front turrets. Since Tarsi are supposed to be tough freighters, I think it would fit if the Standard variant was equipped with aforementioned autocannons.
It also might be interesting to have an uncommon version of the Tarsus with a fifth turret in the middle on the right side; I notice there’s a partially painted over turret mount there already. Perhaps make it a small missile mount? A Salamander launcher would fit nicely.
The Pirate Who Lived
I’ve noticed that pirates tend to stay out picking on weak fleets until they finally die. Only a few of the biggest fleets live long enough to finally return to port after they finish their X amount of months voyaging.
I propose two more conditions for a pirate fleet returning home.
One: if the fleet loses too many ships they limp back to lick their wounds. They might already do this; I’m not sure.
Two: if they gather enough plunder. Rather than try to track individual cargo to measure this, simply track how many ships they’ve destroyed. I’ll call this the “plunder rating”. When a pirate fleet leaves port, they pick a plunder rating based on the size of their own fleet. Then they act as normal. As they destroy ships, they fill up their plunder rating. Larger ships could be worth more and freighters more on top of that. Once they’ve filled up their plunder rating, they return home to enjoy their loot.
This plunder rating system could actually be applied to NPCs from any faction if they’re going out to raid their faction’s enemies.
Spoiler
This could also be tied into the next version’s persistent NPCs to create dynamic bounties. When a commander completes a successful cruise, he or she is assigned a bounty based on their final plunder rating. Each subsequent cruise could result in an even higher bounty. Bounties might be split between different factions based on whose ships have been destroyed by the NPC.
Losing ships could reduce the NPC’s bounty by an appropriate amount as part of it is paid out. It might be interesting to try to pick off a couple of weak ships from a large fleet to secure a small bounty. Should this synergize with bounties split between factions to increase payout? For example, you come across a pirate with a ¢3000 bounty from the Hegemony and a ¢1000 bounty from the Independents. You destroy a ship in the pirate’s fleet worth ¢500 in bounty. Do you get 500 credits total or 500 credits from each faction?