So here I am once again thinking about Installations and Megaships. We got a lot of them with Q4, which is great to make the world feel more filled with stuff. But right now not a lot can be done with them besides pirating and a few scenarios. So have 2 quick Ideas for new stuff, to be found on both of them:
Secure Data Terminals
We all know, how there is a lot of secrets in the Elite Universe and there is a lot of us, that love to hunt this secret lore. The Listening Posts and the logs of lost surface Installations and Generations Ships are already great, but with so many new Megaships and Installations, there should be a few, that might hold dirty secrets big and small. A Secure Data Terminal is basically an Access Point to the internal Network, that could be target by a recon limpet.
It would of course trigger not only the usual response, but actually get the ship to deploy all available fighters and security personal to search for the source of the intrusion and destroy it. During the long time it will take to hack the network. The hacker and his accomplice had to stay close and actually draw attention towards them or else the security forces would close in on the limpet and destroy it. For super important secrets I would even add ATRs to the rooster of NPC defenders. Once the Drone completes its hack, all Commanders in the instance get a copy of the data(or would have to use data link scanner again on the terminal).
This whole thing could be like a Scenario on its own and take as long as one and on failure or , the target would go into lockdown(i suggest 1 week), during which no new attempts at stealing the data could be made.
As for the contents of the obtained data, that is up to you. But I would tier it into importance/interest and scale the defenders efforts in term(you may play around with the numbers of the response):
Anarchy System should not have diminished defenses(since there would be no system security spawning) of course, but rather spawn NPC's marked as Private Security, when the game would usally spawn System Security in non-anarchy situations, to mark, that they are in fact hired by some important people to protect important stuff.
If you even want to hide these terminals even more, use most of them as mission targets and hacking could result into empty data outside of them, so you could place them on every installation/mega ship and just have most of them be dummies.
The most interesting places for such a scenario would of course be the inside of Installations, where large ships cannot really maneuver all that well, requiring small ships to do the intrusion. But I don't know if NPC's could pathfind their way into them.
Escape Hatches
I already thought, that these one were a thing, but couldn't find any entry on the wiki about them. The idea is to have this hatches, that would drop a bunch of occupied escape pods. They could be placed on Bulk Cruiser Megaships, that have become under attack by the Thargoids or even Damaged Starports outside, as an alternative exit for people, who are cut-off from the main starport due to fires. They could also be used on a number of new Generation Ships, that missed their targets or had to abort colonization, but are still holding out. I already made a suggestion to that point in the past.
In a similar fashion to my previous suggestion about new commodities obtainable from installation/megaships, these hatches could also be used to facilitate prison breaks or rescue of human experiments and start a similar scenario as the Secure Data Terminal(or in case of human experiments as a follow up to that scenario), with a high timer and defense response.
As with Secure Data Terminals, breaking out people could be used as a new mission type
Secure Data Terminals
We all know, how there is a lot of secrets in the Elite Universe and there is a lot of us, that love to hunt this secret lore. The Listening Posts and the logs of lost surface Installations and Generations Ships are already great, but with so many new Megaships and Installations, there should be a few, that might hold dirty secrets big and small. A Secure Data Terminal is basically an Access Point to the internal Network, that could be target by a recon limpet.
It would of course trigger not only the usual response, but actually get the ship to deploy all available fighters and security personal to search for the source of the intrusion and destroy it. During the long time it will take to hack the network. The hacker and his accomplice had to stay close and actually draw attention towards them or else the security forces would close in on the limpet and destroy it. For super important secrets I would even add ATRs to the rooster of NPC defenders. Once the Drone completes its hack, all Commanders in the instance get a copy of the data(or would have to use data link scanner again on the terminal).
This whole thing could be like a Scenario on its own and take as long as one and on failure or , the target would go into lockdown(i suggest 1 week), during which no new attempts at stealing the data could be made.
As for the contents of the obtained data, that is up to you. But I would tier it into importance/interest and scale the defenders efforts in term(you may play around with the numbers of the response):
- Tiny Story bits(i.e. We as a federal installation need more slaves for human experiments). Regular Response of the already existing attack scenario.
- Info about surface locations, with additional logs or flight plan for special megaships, that hold even more secrets. Regular Security Forces spawn at double rates during the defense.
- Interesting Egg Hunts about the past. An ATR spawns every 3rd wave of Security Forces.
- Current Conspiracy/Plot-Line, that could even trigger a Gal-Net storyline if made public by the raiding commanders. An ATR every wave of Security Forces.
Anarchy System should not have diminished defenses(since there would be no system security spawning) of course, but rather spawn NPC's marked as Private Security, when the game would usally spawn System Security in non-anarchy situations, to mark, that they are in fact hired by some important people to protect important stuff.
If you even want to hide these terminals even more, use most of them as mission targets and hacking could result into empty data outside of them, so you could place them on every installation/mega ship and just have most of them be dummies.
The most interesting places for such a scenario would of course be the inside of Installations, where large ships cannot really maneuver all that well, requiring small ships to do the intrusion. But I don't know if NPC's could pathfind their way into them.
Escape Hatches
I already thought, that these one were a thing, but couldn't find any entry on the wiki about them. The idea is to have this hatches, that would drop a bunch of occupied escape pods. They could be placed on Bulk Cruiser Megaships, that have become under attack by the Thargoids or even Damaged Starports outside, as an alternative exit for people, who are cut-off from the main starport due to fires. They could also be used on a number of new Generation Ships, that missed their targets or had to abort colonization, but are still holding out. I already made a suggestion to that point in the past.
In a similar fashion to my previous suggestion about new commodities obtainable from installation/megaships, these hatches could also be used to facilitate prison breaks or rescue of human experiments and start a similar scenario as the Secure Data Terminal(or in case of human experiments as a follow up to that scenario), with a high timer and defense response.
As with Secure Data Terminals, breaking out people could be used as a new mission type
