Occasional NPCs in Deneb with bounties on both sides would be nice, as well as a few unaligned CorVults, CorMauds, and Greyhounds flying around greyspace with bounties. Not much of a bounty, maybe 100,000c, but something.

-1 to dened 'wanted'. That is warzone.

but that gray 'new unrat' can be interesting. What its behaviour? Simply fly from helios to Edras and back?

If those 'wanted' bots in gray attack everybody, or offer some new danger in grayspace, like I imagine unrats were, +1. If simple moving prize, -1.

This can be integrated with the new "Ace" or "Vet" class NPCs. Offering bounties for the killing of a famously successful enemy is nothing new, Alloh.

"-1 to dened 'wanted'. That is warzone."

Because there has never been a criminal in a war zone, right?

anyways, +1. Anything with the potential to bring players to the frontline or to Gray space is a good idea.

Occasional NPCs in Deneb with bounties on both sides

Probably someone hated by one side would be admired by the other. Change it to some NPCs having bounty from enemy's side only and you have my +1, but hated by both in deneb for me is -1.

I'm not proposing unaligned NPCs in Deneb, I mean Itani or Serco NPCs with bounties.

The grey ones aren't unrats, just NPCs flying through different system's wormholes, station sectors, etc. They'd attack any player that enters their radar range.

I like this idea, could add a little more immersion until the player base gets bigger *starts praying*.

+1 to tarenty

+1, but:
1. What about ship behavior?
2. I hope bounties won't spam news system.
3. If there's bounty, there should be NPC bounty hunters. (They should attack those NPC's and lpayers players, who have bounties on their head).

They fly from station to station, maybe Corvus stations, and attack any player they see along the way. Sedina -> Odia -> Bractus -> back.

I still wish we had a better way to display bounties, such as a single post including the last 25 bounty related things and was sent to the top of the news page whenever something was added to the bounty page.

NPC bounty hunters is an interesting idea. Appear in random ships at nation wormholes and occasionally go from wormhole to wormhole in grey? Hailing any player with a bounty and attacking them.

Ok, how I would prefer this idea:

*Deneb:
-Make the Top Killers bots have bounties from enemy side, ex: NPC Serco123 have killed 25 itani NPCs and 2 PCs (same PC twice). Itani offer a bounty on his head.
-Same bounty also applies to PC pilots. Those 'aces' must be hated even more by his enemy!
-Add a "Security Officer" to stations near Deneb, or at Deneb's WHs. They provide info on military bounties. Same script as Marshalls, but with a military inteligence (sic) tone.

*Grayspace
-Bring in some unrats, flying around in small packs. Most efficient ones receive bounties (semi-random).
-Unrats should collectibely behave like the hive, expanding from Bractus/Odia. If they are not fought, they cover whole gray space. Once destroyed, respawn in a remote sector after a while.
-Give unrats a 'secret' station, and a Connie drifting in Bractus and Odia. Offer a mission to locate them and another to destroy this "baddie cappie".
-Basic behaviour: (all unrats have cargo scanners)
--Identified as unaligned (gray nation) like the hive
--Attack lone ships with cargo, avoid convoys and empty ships
--Ignore/evade fighters/bombers

Hmmm... A Connie become unrats' levi, so a few tridents should be their queens...

more +1s

Aye, I like it.

Especially the Connie mission idea. : D

+1s

You guys don't remember the last time we had unrats, do you...?

Oh, I do. Loved em.

/me misses the unrats... even if they did talk like an all pirate version of the Village People.

I heard unrats were removed because they were too tough and too many or some such. This'd only be 1-3 ships roaming around grey.

EDIT: er, wait. I see what you mean now. On second thought I think one Hive is enough in grey, and this should be kept to 1-3 ships. Alloh's Deneb idea is still nice, though.

I really feel that grayspace need more danger crossing WHs and trade routes. More than random Ion Storms, a sure danger that makes places like Odia to be hard to reach or leave in slow, loaded ships...

So, evolving again 2 old ideas

* Make new unrats be Hive Bots, the RatBots*

Reasoning:
There are too many good and valuable resources flying around for the Hive ignore them and focus only in mining.

No need for AI, demands, pirate talk. Simply a new tool for the hive explore resources as scrap and cargo. Just as we do scrap missions...

Since loaded ships provides more resources and are slower, RatBots tend to ignore empty ships. And make them move slower than average ships, at most 160 m/s. Same goes to convoys, avoided due bad potential/risk.

-----------//--------------

Back on previous idea (Which I prefer, since adds diversity):

Make unrats use old ships. Wraiths, buses, whatever. And go slowly improving if defeated, but weaken if they are winning frequently. Expanding from Bractus, the frontline are weakest ones, that goes hardening near their base, and Hogs2, Mauds, bound to Bractus-Odia.

This way we have increasing danger as enter "deep gray", while leaving "near gray" safe enough for newbies.

And this justifies the myth that grayspace is allways a dangerous place.

I never imagined I would say that, but we really need more rats in gray, PC or NPCs, and we should not depend on PCs to achieve that.

I agree. Newbies always say stuff like "Isn't grey dangerous?" on a weekday and I feel like rolling my eyes... bringing unrats back into the fold, along with this new "bot vet" idea that the devs mentioned, is a great plan to bring back the sense of fear to my 400K kg moth that roams around grey with no challenges...