Personally, I think the concept of the IDA should be made into an actual in-game faction on par with Aegis and Powerplay or others of similar scope. This faction is only present in rescue-ships and stations in emergency or repair. Here's the rough idea:
New Faction Subset: Galactic Factions (As opposed to Empires and Galactic Powers, the current two subsets)
- Galactic Factions are massive organizations with specific agendas that reach across the entirety of colonized space
- Galactic Factions offer rewards to committed commanders supporting their causes (similar to PowerPlay)
- A commander doesn't pledge allegiance to a Galactic Faction - they support them much like typical corporations
Rewards
- Galactic Factions have tiers of rank, much like PowerPlay, associated with reputational gains and work completed
- As rank increases, access to factional resources increases also
- These resources can come in the form of increased vendor availability, remote submission of bonds or data, unique modules or ships, unique decals and paintjobs
- Rank decays with time (like powerplay) and requires regular commitment to maintain or increase
Galactic Faction Global Support
- Galactic Factions are not competing with each other, as in PowerPlay, but they
are ranked in terms of support from the community. The higher the rank of a faction, the more its agenda impacts the overall climate of the galaxy.
Starting List of Factions...
- Galactic Search & Rescue (A Division of the Pilot's Federation)
- The Pilot's Federation
- The Canonn Research Group
- AEGIS (Thargoid Research & Response)
- The Dark Wheel
- The Imperial Consortium (Traders in Slaves)
- The Federal Trade Association (Traders in Industrial Goods)
- The Allied Market (Traders in Agricultural and Surface Goods)
- Ram Tah (Guardian Research & Response)
As an example, we'll take Search & Rescue...
- As S&R increases in galactic standing, resources required to repaired stations decreases and payouts for missions at emergency-status stations increases.
- If all stations are repaired within a cycle (huge communal effort), all members of rank X or higher receive bonus incentive multiplied by number of stations damaged (not emergency). If all emergency stations reach 'Clear Status', all members above rank X receive unique decal that cannot be rescinded as thanks for their work.
- Ranks in S&R provide discounts towards purchasing limpets and limpet controllers within the system they are present, increased payout on S&R turn-ins, the unlocking of decals and paintjobs (which by policy can be scrubbed if rank drops too low), unique communication with facilities (Welcome back Commander, we could use your skills right about now! Fly Safe Commander, thank you for your service.)
So as you can see, the idea is to provide another layer on the BGS for commander involvement and ownership. I 100% think cosmetics should be included in this and I also think some form of 'achievement' award for major accomplishments - like all stations repaired or cleared - should exist, providing commanders a point of pride in their efforts. Given these systems repeat on a weekly basis, nobody is actually 'locked out' of these achievements...you just have to commit the time to get them, much like the various powerplay modules.
I love the whole emergency/repair idea...but yeah, it's kinda silly in its current design. Rather than dumb it down, I'd like to see it become a dynamic component in the BGS and see other 'large scale' factions outside of Powerplay (which is really intended as a legalized PvP platform).