Oh I love when there are ambush fleets at distress beacons. It's free supplies and fuel!
Pretty much that. I usually check the signals if they are not that far out of my way. Even in early, or early mid game you have a decent chance against them if you don't fight the waiting fleets all at once. It's sometimes hard to get supplies otherwise.
But to the original point, I don't really see the need for a punishment, reward or
nudge for the player to check distress calls. Unless you are RPing as a good Samaritan of course, but that's more of a personal choice. Scavengers, like the player, need to watch their fuel levels when heading out to explore, and they may get stuck in really worthless systems if they are unlucky, at the mercy of passers by. Same as the player, if you run out of fuel.
As far as punishments go, I could see some new events with stronger fleets, [Redacted] ambushes or something, but not helping a random scavenger or not engaging ambushing pirate fleets causing you, the player, who likely didn't even know them at all, problems later on seems like... weird. Or strange at the very least.
Now, if there was a new mission type you got from contacts or could take if within comm array range, that you need to either rescue, or find out what happened to X who was last seen travelling to constellation Y and is in one of that constellation's systems, that's a different matter altogether. The player, depending on situations, may have to aid the guy in a battle, provide supplier and/or fuel so that the target can make it back to the core worlds, or take on the crew of the target for different results. Alternatively, you could have the option to extort more money from the target, or, plain and simple, rob them and leave them to the stars' mercy.
TL;DR, in my opinion distress signal mechanic is OK as it is. Some other flavour events or actual missions are very welcome, but I think handing out Blueprints for something like this is a bit too much, considering the relatively low risk potential.
