Players are given a mission to eliminate a gang of notorious pirates. With each 'leg' the opponents get tougher, adding more and more engineered components. This would be great as the high ranking engineered NPC's would be properly gated. Each leg could be in a different system, or mix of weapons. Example, one pirate favours silent running builds, another frags etc. With each step the player would be briefed on the opponent too, so they know in advance the engineering they face. It might be that nothing is known about the pirate and the player has to anticipate.