Suggestion: Faction Stationary Defenses and reinforcements.

[Shadowflare]

NPC factions should have defense platforms spawned in their commerce/industrial/capital areas, especially areas with lots of stations. A scrapyard off the beaten path probably doesn't warrant one of these. Basically just stations with a number of tier/size 3 turrets (long ranged artilley/railguns/seeker launchers), a few torpedo launchers and a couple hangar bays. When NPCs start to lose stations/lots of civilian ships, they should call in reinforcements similar to when a faction war starts. (to stop pirates and xsotan from endlessly wearing down a sector you happen to be sitting in.)

 

Basically if a sector has...5 local defense ships, if they lose 3 of them (more than half) you should get a sensor reading saying "The enemy has called reinforcements! They'll be here soon!" and then sometime after in a randomly determined interval, the reinforcements should show up."

 

The long range of weapons on defense platforms should act as deterrents, and they should be positioned at generation close to clusters of other structures, to defend them better. (basically, a group of three pirates shouldn't stand a chance if they are trying to raid near one of these)

 

Once we get coaxial weapons (big gauss cannons, etc) perhaps have those spawn as defense satellites for some stations, heavy hitting, not a ton of HP, but again long range. (basically a small/tiny station with a coax weapon and is able to rotate via a gyro)