Don't talk utter twaddle.
Never do.
How am I necessarily getting a 'leg up' on other people because I have to be stuck behind come-from-nowhere npcs in an empty, tiny station?!?
Everyone has to deal with NPCs. If you didn't then your CMDR would be able to accomplish whatever their goals were faster than those who did and the effects of this on the underlying setting would be apparent, to some degree.
The fact that you find NPCs to be an annoyance at times demonstrates that they are a gameplay constraint of some relevance.
And in a universe with unlimited LTD, engineering, credits, ships, no limits on number who can be Elite... WHAT LEG-UP could you be talking about???
Everyone has the opportunity to engage in these activities.
No one has the ability to categorically remove NPCs from their experience because if they did, then everyone would, except when they were convenient. To do otherwise would be to play by a worse set of rules than the competition (and even in Solo there are a myriad of implicitly and explicitly competitive mechanisms).
Maybe it's just me today, but I really don't get where you are coming from.at all. I bet when you play, you don't think "oh, I'd better be fair to Tiger". Neither should you. Play the game your way, and have fun. o7
I strive to play by the rules of the game as I suspect they were intended, and when it doubt, I err on the side of plausibility...both for my own benefit, and because my sense of fair play demands it.
I
can't have fun in a game if I think I'm willingly playing by a better set of rules than others.
The same rules do apply to everyone - you can play in solo or a group too
I know.