Below is a preview of the Oasis ship. Scale is not final. Inspired by Mass Effect somewhat, along with some of my own designs. Detailing will be a combination of existing Nomad styling with several new themes for the central habitat ring. The crates towards the back are not meant to be crew or civilian quarters, those are for cargo and storage. I also intend to depict a miniature shipyard, and several dozen launchbays. This ship is essentially a mobile space station. It will not be armed. It will, however, have a great deal of armor, and be heavily shielded. The ship devotes all of its resources to support of the Nomad civilization, and the Oasis' active defense falls to its escort armada.
I'd also like to describe my plan for a brand-new type of Campaign behavior. I have recently discovered that it is possible not only to issue and revoke orders for any active AI-controlled fleet, but also that a plugin gets a chance to run its logic every single frame while in the star system view. I don't think anyone has yet grasped the power that this offers.
So here's what I plan to do. Instead of spawning on a daily basis at a planet as they do now, the Nomad fleets will spawn as a group at the border of the map somewhere. My new spawnpoint plugin will be tasked with issuing orders to every one of these fleets in a somewhat more active way than folks have usually done it. Instead of determining the list of orders in advance, the plugin will scan the available non-fleet entities: planets, stars, space stations, and asteroids. The primary Nomad fleet, the one directly accompanying the Oasis, will choose a random destination from among these and proceed toward it.
Now here's where it will get a little interesting. My plugin, since it executes every frame, will get a chance to analyze the distance between the Oasis fleet, and all other nearby hostile fleets. The plugin will then assess the threat level of these fleets, and create a prioritized list of targets. Available fleets which stand a good chance of victory will be assigned to intercede and position themselves between the Oasis and the threatening fleet. If the distance closes to an uncomfortable range, they will engage. Otherwise they will continue their escort duty. If no threats are detected (hostile fleets are pitifully small or extremely far away), they will be ignored, and the escort fleets will assume a counter-clockwise circular patrol pattern around the Oasis.
The Oasis fleet, upon reaching its destination, will rest a while (presumably to refuel the fleet, perform repairs and such) before choosing a new destination, with a new scan of stationary entities.
A second interesting bit? The Nomads are also going to "scatter" if the Oasis is destroyed. In other words, if an enemy incursion successfully destroys or captures the Oasis fleet, all remaining Nomad fleets will immediately leave the star system (go to edge of map and dissappear). Several weeks later they will return with a new Oasis (restart process).
Thoughts, anyone?