I think there is a need for a new type of space. One that is not connected to EVE and is completely uninhabited except for maybe drifters/sleepers/triglavians/whatever or a mixture of the above. All run by AI. There would be no stargates, no local. Everything in it would be player and NPC generated.
There would need to be some changes to the game (including) adding a ship type which can travel to a star system without using a warp gate. It could carry all you need (a sub-athanor structure with bad refining and manufacturing stats) to homestead a region of space that is infested by rats. All the stargates in the region would need to be player (or NPC) stargates. Local would be there only if someone dropped a “Local” structure.
This would be the ultimate sandbox! Tell me why this idea is completely awesome in your comments below.
I love the idea of a homestead system where you could be the leader of a bunch of colonies. Moreover, you could use it as a safe place to store ships and stuff like that. Perhaps you could construct massive Amarrian-style statues and palaces to show off your ridiculous in-game wealth.
All the other ideas are… Not very good. The NPCs would require enormous amounts of server processing. We already have plenty of high-sec systems that get practically zero visitors besides those passing through, so if you’re a lone player (which I totally understand), you have places to escape to already. Adding more empty systems would just make travel distances longer and it would be incredibly under-appreciated / underused since there would be nothing to do there.