Greetings all, new to the beta and forums, so hopefully I'm not posting ideas that have been rehashed for months. Took a look and didn't see this, so...

Have a proximity warning detector for hostile ships, missiles, etc, similiar to the large object scanner. A few times now I've done tried targetting the nearest, saw it was a ways away, started to pick up some cargo and suddenly I'm getting blasted by a second ship that was heading towards me.

I know I could continue to hit "target nearest" to avoid this, but between scooping up cargo, messaging to wingmates and trying to keep an eye on the distant target I was following, this can be a pain.

Maybe you could have a system similar to Eve's, where you can see the mobs near you in a scanner window (like when you press 'u'). This window would them have a few icons next to the ship that would show if the bot/player is targetting you, is hostle to you or is firing on you. I've also died a few times whist chasing a bot cause I didn't realise one had started attacking me from the side :-)

A simpler method might just be to give a warning once you've been targeted and weapons aimed at you.
Maybe an initial tone, and a line could show up next to the large object indicator: Warning, targeted sensors detected.

Actually, what I'd like to see is a proximity warning when your inside the other ships explosion blast radius so you don't accidently fry yourself when you blow something up.

Now THAT I'd be happy to get, I'm doing that all the time.. oh yeah, I like to reach out the cockpit and slap my enemy before I finish him off so it gets me into all sorts of trouble ;(

--SD

Well after a while you'll be able to guess the distance much better, so you won't try to get close to other ships, of course they might still attack you in the back, regularly clicking 'x' and taking a quick look at the radar helps. Remember, in a bot invested area (hell, anywhere): keep moving.