You lack vision. It’s true that the current space infrastructure doesn’t really have need of npc protection… this is mainly due to reinforcement timers. But what if we had stuff that didn’t have reinforcement timers… and could just be blown up like mission assets.
It would be useful to at least have some defense on these objects. This more or less ends up being a mission site a player could create.
So example structures:
Deadspace Beacon: structure that creates deadspace pocket.
Acceleration Gate: you’re familiar with that structure.
Proximity Alarm: Hackable structure that will alert the deadspace owner of the intrusion and suspect flag intruders if the alarm isn’t deactived within 60 seconds.
Hangers: for npcs and drones.
Intel Structures: There’s a wide variety of things these could be used for, but if CCP ever wants to get rid of nullsec local, this could replace it as an intel tool.
Industry:
shipyard: : sub capital construction yards. High risk due to not having reinforcement timer protection, but also potentially more efficient resource build cost. It’s also a way to avoid taxes.
farm: in space pi. grow organics (for the picture below, I coudln’t find an example of the stand alone farm asset, but you shoudl get the idea.)
other industry stuff: reactions, invention, create trade commodities, ect.
This is actually where The OP’s idea could come into play. Allow the player to use npc miners to mine non-caspsuleer minerals … like bandine. You could use some bs lore reason like the normal minerals are too volatile for npc miners to mine.
Anyway, these npc miners would mine these new mineral types specifically for deadspace construction. This will allow for an rts / dungeon master style of game play. Which of course other players can come in and smash to pieces with their immortal godlike powers.
@QuakeGod Last year I created a post that covered much of this topic (and more) in a more complete package. Just because you want pvp, doesn’t mean working on more compelling pve is a terrible idea. Especially when you start blending the two playstyles to be indistinguishable from each other.