Done right it can potentially provide what you want dynamically (new PVE content) with little or no new development effort from CCP, consider they may be trying to plant a garden with bulbs rather than annuals that need to be replanted every year.
Though admittedly I’ve yet to ever see it done right in any MMO.
It’s like the holy grail, always just over the hill in the next valley 
^ This.
This is the point. How many times do we have to watch the idea fail before we say “hmmm, perhaps the very idea is flawed”? It’s like some people are simply unable to learn from history and past mistakes.
It’s not that CCP is making “pve I don’t like” (that was a stupid thing for that poster to say btw), it’s that they keep repeating the same mistakes, chasing the same fairy tales when it would be easier to make pve content we’d actually use based on what we’ve been doing.
For example, CCP added Dreads (that are pretty dumb intelligence wise) as a chance spawn in top end null sec anoms. Every ratter I know loves killing the things, it was well received. Simple ideas like that, or like bringing back the ‘pirate logs’ drops in missions that were like escalations, or adding DED complexes with new twists etc.
CCP historically has a habit on focusing on new shiny (like VR, like making an engine from scratch for World of Darkness, like linking a 1st person shooter to an aged spaceship MMO , and in this case trying to make NPCs act like people when players obviously prefer content with ‘dumb’ npcs). CCP massively over-reaches when much simpler steps and additions would be the better choice.
IMO it does not help that so many players think they want the stuff they are overreaching on.
one shoot new twist? After a week it would be stale, because they are scripted. Saving the Damsel II? It would solve nothing. At the same time you don’t want not predictables triggers as so many time you express that. Some people like to rat in anoms some don’t. You want pve to stay at the anoms level, predictable. If I know what to expect content will become stale fast. From my 2 example of the mission above which one would you choose?
The problem is not that missions are predictable. The problem is that they’ve been the same ones for 9 years. It is not a strategic problem, but a tactical one. EVE doesn’t needs “something that is not missions”, it needs “moar effin’ missions”.
Think of a library that only haves enough comicbooks to keep you busy for 2 years. What would be the better solution when the customers grow tired of reading the same comicbooks?
a) buy more comicbooks
b) buy anything but comicbooks, including expensive nerd toys, a 360º swinger and a chromotherapy room
Guess what’s more effective…
Your comparison with comics is flawed. You’ll still want to read comics while CCP grown up and want to upgrade to the books.
Thank you for bringing this up. Nobody else has mentioned it as you said. I think ultimately this comes down to how common the forward operating base spawns are and how powerful the roaming pirate gangs are. If one of these ends up in a third of all high security systems, they could cause rampant chaos and hilarious non-stop losses among uninformed players. Especially if the roaming gang has decent damage or electronic warfare.
I don’t think this structure bashing will be a big deal initially, but once the January structure changes take place, these Pirates could be bashing player structures 24 hours a day. It is actually funny to imagine that high-security space players might regularly participate in PVE from the Gunning seats of their Citadel.
You found uncle Bob then, we lost him in the 80’s, can we have him back? but only if he’s done swinging 
Isn’t it just 
could be fun simply just as a change / something different & possibly good practice / training for when the PVP guys come knocking, or depending on how it works in practice it might actually end up as helpful meta for the PVP bunch…
I’m imagining a situation where NPC’s put it in timer & then the PVP bunch hang around in the wings for the PVE guys to see off the second attack, then bash on in when the NPC’s are done & the PVE defenders are a little weakened?
Possibly but what if it is like incursions where your tank is cut in half as are bounties until the event is cleared past a certain point?
Just move to another system until someone clears the FOB or it despawns.
A picture is worth a thousand words. Comics are the bestest.
What it’s missing is a COSMOS type NPC that spawns in the system with the FOB after several hours and starts messaging people with bad rep towards that faction that “for the small fee of 100m per level, we can forget about this whole thing while we’re here and you’re safe to do whatever you want from us while we’re here.”
You donate money to the NPC, it gets that faction’s heat off of you. Not a permanent status increase, just one that lasts a week or so until the FOB naturally despawns or is destroyed. Might be in the form of a “bribe booster.”
Local Empire/Concord reduce status a bit for the bribe.
Kicker is that the first one to pay in the system precipitates the immediate spawn of a new FOB for that faction in a nearby system labeled with the sellout’s name. Maybe even announce it in local.
Probably exploitable and farmable and I’m not even sure technically possible, but I’d love to see the ratio of those who would pay for protection from roving NPC’s at the risk of angering players nearby.
You kidding? You realize that the trollish among us would have an absolute field day with that right? For the low low fee of a couple billion ISK one could flood an entire cluster with pirate spawns screwing over carebears incapable of proper combat fits.
They’d not be paying for the protection, they’d be paying for the privilege of inconveniencing entire regions with additional “content”.
It looks like the factions governments are in serious trouble, maybe on the verge of collapse. Their navies and FacPo never have been able to do anything about all of the Guristas, Angels, etc. continually running around in their high sec systems. Now the outlaws will be actually be setting up structures and chasing down eggers… and still nobody can or will do anything about it!
A shameful disgrace, if you ask me. Where does our tax money go, anyway?
Its a golem, i run L4’s without using bastion as it is, even half tank won’t hurt me that much i’ll just have to be a little more careful and maybe start using drugs 
If nothing else, CODE can LARP by trying to get NPCs to buy mining permits.
I’m gonna laugh when I see the first CODE fleet getting slaughtered when they warp into a mining belt looking for newbies mining and instead find a 16 man pirate fleet with scrams and ewar.
It’s always possible (?) that high standings to pirates might protect them from attack, could be a new meta there grinding standings to npc pirate factions, but I doubt it 
I would like them so much to use deadspace gates in missions and DED sites. That would be something new.