In regard to the whole PvP discussion, just wondering if the idea of hiring NPC wingmen has ever been discussed. Just thought I'd toss out a few thoughts about this idea and see what people think....
- Stations (not outposts) would have NPC wingmen for hire that would vary in price, say, according to their rank and ship type.
- To hire them, you have to make a deposit of, say, 1% of their rebuy. If they die, you lose that deposit, but if they don't die, you get it back when you're done with them (minus costs for repairing/restocking).
- Paid by the hour? Or distance traveled with you? Percentage of any bounties/trades/etc. go to the NPC wingmen? Not sure how that would work. Open to ideas.
- Effective game mechanic for both Open and Solo play.
- Fits nicely alongside the feature already coming from FDev for multicrew
- Goes along with something you already see in-game with NPC's where you'll see, say, a Type-9 with a wing of two Cobras.
- Not just useful for traders, but other roles too, like miners could use them. (Again, goes right along with something you already see in-game, where NPC miners will often have a wingman standing by while they mine.)
- Allows players who don't have friends to wing up with (or who want to play in Solo) to actually have a viable way to take on the +++ planetary base missions.
- Helps a bit toward leveling the playing field for players who get interdicted by a wing of 4 PvP'ers. Maybe they'll lose their deposits on the wingmen, but they'll have even a fighting chance of escaping and not losing their cargo. (I often hear traders who are being targeted by PvP'ers get upset not because of the rebuy cost, but from having lost their cargo due to the PvP'ers.)
I hope FDev takes a new look at this topic, though. After all, it seems like whatever UI and game mechanics they are building for the multicrew feature would be well suited to also hiring wingmen. (Probably would share many of the same UI features at the least.)