I think it would be cool to have a Medical Bay, either as a new passenger cabin type, or working in concert with existing passenger cabins.
When you scoop up occupied escape pods, instead of just pawning them off in like you would a recovered black box, you could have the option of transferring them to the Medical Bay. This would remove the escape pod from your cargo hold (or maybe turn it into an empty one), and either add a passenger to the medical bay cabin, or if it wasn't a cabin, add them directly to an existing passenger cabin.
Ideally, I think the medical bay would be a very-small-capacity cabin, and you could use your right-hand panel (in an interface similar to the mining refinery) to transfer occupied escape pods into it. There would be a visible timer (for the recovery process), at which point you would have a new passenger in your med bay. You would also be able to use this interface to transfer recovered passengers out of medical and into normal passenger cabins, so you can start the recovery process on someone else.
After a short while, these rescued people would offer you a mission to take them to a station or planetary base of their choosing. This mission could have wildly varying payouts, ranging from little to nothing, if you rescued a poor person, to a huge rewards, if you happened to rescue a generous rich guy.
You'd have to option of declining this mission and just sending them off wherever you happen to dock next (for a varying but smaller reward). If you picked up a demanding wealthy person and don't drop them off anywhere, they might try to have bounty hunters sent after you to rescue them. If you picked up someone with enemies, you might also get alternate missions to deliver that person into their custody, or even just space them.
While this sort of gameplay could be added without a new module, I think a new module would be preferable, because a medical rescue ship like that is quite different from a basic passenger ship. It's also worthwhile for the effect it will have on a player's "feel" of having an actual rescue ship vs the "feel" of just a standard passenger ship.
When you scoop up occupied escape pods, instead of just pawning them off in like you would a recovered black box, you could have the option of transferring them to the Medical Bay. This would remove the escape pod from your cargo hold (or maybe turn it into an empty one), and either add a passenger to the medical bay cabin, or if it wasn't a cabin, add them directly to an existing passenger cabin.
Ideally, I think the medical bay would be a very-small-capacity cabin, and you could use your right-hand panel (in an interface similar to the mining refinery) to transfer occupied escape pods into it. There would be a visible timer (for the recovery process), at which point you would have a new passenger in your med bay. You would also be able to use this interface to transfer recovered passengers out of medical and into normal passenger cabins, so you can start the recovery process on someone else.
After a short while, these rescued people would offer you a mission to take them to a station or planetary base of their choosing. This mission could have wildly varying payouts, ranging from little to nothing, if you rescued a poor person, to a huge rewards, if you happened to rescue a generous rich guy.
You'd have to option of declining this mission and just sending them off wherever you happen to dock next (for a varying but smaller reward). If you picked up a demanding wealthy person and don't drop them off anywhere, they might try to have bounty hunters sent after you to rescue them. If you picked up someone with enemies, you might also get alternate missions to deliver that person into their custody, or even just space them.
While this sort of gameplay could be added without a new module, I think a new module would be preferable, because a medical rescue ship like that is quite different from a basic passenger ship. It's also worthwhile for the effect it will have on a player's "feel" of having an actual rescue ship vs the "feel" of just a standard passenger ship.
