> Half-seriously, what about in-game email?

Buddies can send notes to each other, even when the recipient is off-line. Type /buddy by itself for help.

Woo-hoo! It's a good idea after all :D

Some kind of simulator(tm) would be a good idea, IMHO, only if multiplayer was only available for guilds. So I could train my new members without slaughtering their death count.

But for general use against AI.

Yeah, its a neat idea, been posted lots, and dismissed by vets as much as mining was (its here :P)

non-buddies can send notes to eachother via BLAK Hive.

I would note that, in a way, we already have a simulator: The Test Server! That is where I go when I want to try something boneheadedly stupid from an RP perspective (like find out when and how much damage I take from hitting asteroids...). Just invite all the B-8 players at some point to stop by TEST-B-8, and fight there. An in-real-game sim would still be interesting though (especially for guild training).

How hard would it be to make a simulator? Would it be fun? I still don't see a pressing need for a sim just so people can be spared the humiliation of a high "deaths" count.

My suggestion had nothing to do with me dying in B-8, Dying really doesn't bother me too much. If B-8 was role-played as a pirate blockade or something similar then I would have no problem with it. I guess this is a problem of RP vs non-RP, which really deserves a new thread.