^^^ This
Exactly why I don't want to have my experience tarnished by an aggressive minority. The majority of us here have been waiting a generation for this game to arrive and relive their original journey of discovery through the universe.
I don't want my six year old son to watch on thinking about muggings knowing they are most likely to come from real people. I want him to appreciate the scale and complexities of the universe and the thoughts and efforts involved in improving oneself within the game.
If I die to a NPC then it'll be my fault, down to making a risky judgement in journeying to an unstable world or jumping into the unknown as an explorer. If I'm ferrying Food to a stable but hungry world and I get ganked by some l33t dude just for the hell of it, it's not how I remember Elite and not how I want to invest my little spare time.
Unfortunately leaning towards single player...![]()
It sounds like SP is more for you to be honest. I'm an original BBC/Amiga player too, but to have human interaction in Elite is what dreams are made of personally.
I don't want Elite 1, I want Elite Dangerous.
Having someone attack you/be aggressive whatever is, for me, much more realistic than a SP experience could ever offer. And like others have said, you can always disappear to remote areas where you're very unlikely to meet anyone.