So at the moment you can for example undertake a mission to escort a convoy of ships. You can Wing up with a team of Wingmen (CMDR or NPC), and then have to escort the ships (for example) between two Nav beacons (arriving at A, leaving at B). Between these beacons they come under attack and you can assign the NPCs to attack/defend specific targets.
Of course (in OPEN) there could be counter missions to attack this convoy. So you find CMDRs being offered CRs to destroy the very convoy you are protecting.
And of course, these exact same mechanics can be re-used for CGs and Powerplay of course.
So you can for example have a station blockaded? So you come out of SG a long distance out from the station, and have to decide if you then want to flay the last leg (in normal flight) to it. You could be a trader trying to get good in for high profits. You could be an enforcer of the blockade, potentially on a fighter tour of duty on the station. You could be controlling a wing of NPC ships, or working withj a Wing of friends. Or you could be trying to break the blockade, or escort traders through. Again potentially working on a fighter on a capital ship.
And of course, these exact same mechanics can be re-used for CGs and Powerplay of course.
And let's not even start with piracy, which is comically incomplete as a "corner stone" profession. That needs lots of work TBH.
What ever happened to silent/cold running and some real depth and purpose to it? At kickstarter time, the first video footage of cold running suggested lots of interesting mechanics... Seemingly which have now been forgotten about. eg: Stealth missions into enemy asteroid fields to locate items without being detected?
Mining? Is there the slightest depth that DB inferred would exist at Kickstarter? Where you could go out and be rewarded for exploration by finding a rich resource? No.. Because like most other elements in the game, they're all self contained mini-games which really don't have any meaning or statefulness. ie: You can sit in a extraction site and vapourise the procession of Wanteds turning up for not other reason than to die on your lasers for ever... Destroying more ships than have ever been made. Vapourising more metal than the galaxy contains... And yet still they'll come. You can mine an area for a year, and not a jot will change. This is not what was inferred at kickstarter time.
And the background sims trading model? Never quite worked has it.
I'm sorry, but at the moment the existing mechanics are thin. They need to be beefed up IMHO before looking at radically new areas such as first person which in itself will require just as much development effort.
Now I know this all sounds a tad harsh but the game has not moved in the way I'd like it to over the past year. Eg: Powerplay, CQC and The Engineers have been questionable allocations of valuable development time IMHO. eg: Adding 33% more pewpew really isn't interesting new gamplay for me.
Walking around is easy... It's what the game would need to offer that you can do in first person. Often you hear comments like, "Well, I'll repair my ship." How will that gameplay be added? What will it consist of to make it remotely interesting? Point at something and hold space bar?
What other interesting things will you be able to do in First Person? Think about the actual gameplay... and how much work that will be... And meanwhile the core game elements are being left as almost a list of place holders.
I've actually got an idea for fleshing out RES sites. I'm sure it'd be a lot of work, but it does leverage a lot of things that already exist in the game so that should help.
Give the RES sites "states" that are managed by the BGS, that you can view in supercruise and in the nav panel. Each state would have a set of spawn tables associated with it.
Secure: System security has a firm grip on this RES site. Only police and miners spawn. This is the default state for Low, Medium, and High intensity res sites (although "high" doesn't actually spend much time in it, more on that later). This state is intended for, well, mining. Resource extraction. That sort of thing. When the site is Secure, you can mine in peace knowing NPC pirates will not show up and the police are watching your back.
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Pirate Raid: A local pirate gang feels like they've got enough muscle to take on System Security here. The spawn table here works in phases: on entering the instance, police spawn first. After that, pirates spawn in waves while the police call in reinforcements. During a Pirate Raid, the pirate ships will target system security first as they attempt to gain control of the area, then go after miners if they feel like they are winning. If pirates are destroyed faster than System Security, eventually the raid will fail and the system will go back to the Secure state. If system security is destroyed faster than the pirates, the RES site will be Overrun.
Pirate raids have a random chance of occurring based on the type of RES site (Low is least frequent, High is most frequent). The chance slowly increases over time, so there will be an occasional raid sooner or later. System states that reduce system security increase the chance of Raids, as does killing System Security and selling to the black market. Busts also increase the chance of raids, as funding for security is cut and people down on their luck turn to piracy to make a living. During a pirate raid, the system's controlling faction gives a bonus on their own bounties in that RES site (~20%-30% ish?). If a pirate faction controls one or more stations in the system, the frequency and intensity of pirate raids will be increased for all RES sites in the system. Additionally, if they control a station, the pirate faction will offer combat bonds or something similar for killing System Security during a raid. Doing so is still illegal and will still put a bounty on you.
Finally, as long as there are ongoing raids in the system, the controlling faction will generate missions to kill pirates in-system and any pirate factions present will generate missions to kill system security.
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Overrun: System Security has withdrawn from the RES site, and pirates are running rampant. This is the default state for Hazardous RES sites. Only pirates and the occasional foolhardy miner will spawn. Overrun RES sites don't have the bonus pay that Raids do, but they make up for it in volume and may still generate missions to "clean up" that site.
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Security Operation: System Security is attempting to take control of the site. This is essentially the opposite of a Pirate Raid. Pirates spawn first, then the police spawn in and attack them. Bonuses and missions are generated similar to a Pirate Raid. If the police win, the system is Secure. If they lose, it goes back to being Overrun. Security Operations have a random chance to occur in Overrun sites, with odds increasing over time much like Raids. System states that raise the security level make Security Operations more likely, as does killing pirates. Boom states also increase the chances of a Security Operation, due to increased funding available for system security.
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These states would be tracked by the BGS so that they can be synced across instances. And ideally, they would be able to change while you are still in the RES, with an appropriate announcement from System Security such as "We have incoming pirates on sensors.", "They're retreating, we won!", "We can't hold here any longer, fall back!", etc.
