My Opinion:
The absolutely last thing the game needs is more RNG.
What it needs is consistency.
It needs persistent NPCs.
I'd rather have it behave like Shadow of War,
spawning NPCs once, and then only repopulating on a set point in time.
NPCs should mimick player behaviour and manipulate the BGS,
that requires to keep track of them and would surely amount in a gigantic
amount of data that is shifted every second.
To reduce that FD could limit the maximum population of NPCs,
but that'd result in empty systems, requiring a heat map
to see whether or not a system's traffic is high, medium, low
or unvisited in the last 4 hours.
On the other hand this would remove the spawning of NPCs in your face totally,
but lead to a more realistic touch, however as elite is grind in a dress,
i can already hear complaints on that front, just thinking about the whole idea.
NPC persistence, every single one being a simulated CMDR travelling from
X to y doing Z, loosing a ship, coming back, trading, mining, hunting, robbing
and exploring. NPCs gathering funds and upgrading, suffering losses and setbacks
downgrading.
It would truly be glorious if that'd be possible.
