I know I am kind of new here and maybe it is a little soon to try and change the world, but ..
I had to spend a few days away from the game, due to some exams, and It gave me a little time to think. I came up with two ideas that makes sense . (at last, to me)
First, concerning the NPC patrols. Wouldn't it be usefull to add a command like /patrolsbegone that could be used to make the npc patrols around vanish? Such a command would only affect npc of the faction of the caller (with a id verification), of course, to prevent abuse. It would also make the caller say a message in local chat such as "All ship .. resume your former course, I am handling this". I think this command would be tremendously usefull to everyone, allowing players to actually talk to each others without any NPC interference (and boy, that is annoying). Grows ships could even talk to civilians without fearing they'll be crushed by their faction npc.
And the second one would be to put an additionnal commodity in all bases that would represent a npc of that faction. Like a "liberty rogue" buyable at buffalo. It would sell at the same price in all bases to prevent trading abuse and would be only buyable by rightly tagged ship (in this case, only the rogues). It would create some RP, those commodities would acts as ambassadors, or crew, or anything of the like. (Yes .. that one is a lot of tedious work, I know .. that's just an Idea ^^)
Well .. my two cents !
See you all in game real soon.
Cam: He is just talking about pilot commodities, not an NPC escort system.
As for the NPC's off command, it is very abuse-able as you can just have a friend with the proper ID clear a path for you through guard systems or other places you arent supposed to be able to go. Im pretty sure the idea has come up before as well, as it would help with RP in certain circumstances.
1/ I want to believe that poeples who abuses the gigt that are offered to them are a minority. Thus, It would be more good than harm.
2/ But, more importantly, It would be useless to abuse that system. Ok, a friend might shoo all guard faction npc away, but what's the point? Acces to bases that are hostiles and therefore undockable? Anyway, if this is a issue, I think it would be possible to make this command not work with guard faction.
I've seen commodities that work that way, basically just for RP and are equipable objects so when you are blown you don't lose it; they add a lot of fun because the posibilities for this are unlimited; anything from pilots to a "Rigged bomb" could be added just for fun and RP
All pirates in Gallia, for example, will do it because it is hard to fight with NPC.
Comtraband traders will do same.
But it fights better to leave them (no lags).
He said your own faction's NPCs, not enemy NPCs.
And with that in mind, I fully support it. Especially after an RP betwen my Freelancer and one Outcast that kept getting interrupted by Outcast NPCs...