Okay so, my first post on these forums, lotta ideas in this noggin so hopefully some are received well!
Explorers find a lot of cool stellar goodies out in the black, but what if, while out there, you came across a crashed ship from times gone by? A Merlin, for example, that some brave Commander took outside of the bubble to try and put his name in the stars, only to crash on some desolate hellhole.
At the crash site, its mostly degraded scrap, but maybe you chance across a piece of the Merlin that still works (Say, a thruster or stabilizer). With this first piece, you unlock a scavenger hunt that takes you from Tip Off, to Tip Off, following clues to more pieces of the Merlin, all with the goal of building your own functional ship that is no longer produced by the various large shipmakers. As you travel from clue to clue, finding more pieces, you would begin to build an almost complete Merlin, but scattered parts may not make the whole.
With enough parts, you could go and contact an engineer, someone who could modernise certain aspects of the ship to comply with modern shipyards (Make it able to accept the modern iterations of Frame Shift Drives and have weapon hardpoints the same as modern ships).
With the parts, maybe some materials for the engineer and patience, you will have built a unique and different ship than is offered throughout the bubble, and best of all - It will be YOURS. Your own Merlin, handbuilt, earned through hard work.
Explorers find a lot of cool stellar goodies out in the black, but what if, while out there, you came across a crashed ship from times gone by? A Merlin, for example, that some brave Commander took outside of the bubble to try and put his name in the stars, only to crash on some desolate hellhole.
At the crash site, its mostly degraded scrap, but maybe you chance across a piece of the Merlin that still works (Say, a thruster or stabilizer). With this first piece, you unlock a scavenger hunt that takes you from Tip Off, to Tip Off, following clues to more pieces of the Merlin, all with the goal of building your own functional ship that is no longer produced by the various large shipmakers. As you travel from clue to clue, finding more pieces, you would begin to build an almost complete Merlin, but scattered parts may not make the whole.
With enough parts, you could go and contact an engineer, someone who could modernise certain aspects of the ship to comply with modern shipyards (Make it able to accept the modern iterations of Frame Shift Drives and have weapon hardpoints the same as modern ships).
With the parts, maybe some materials for the engineer and patience, you will have built a unique and different ship than is offered throughout the bubble, and best of all - It will be YOURS. Your own Merlin, handbuilt, earned through hard work.