This is an idea, and I’m not too experienced with the politics of No Man’s Sky. Hell, I’ve never even been to the Hub yet. But… just check this out.
In Next, let’s say you can demand units from another player. Or atleast initiate a trade. To help those that want to be pirates or traders. Cool, cool.
Taxes and toll fees for the Hub and other civilizations, hear me out.
What if, in order to travel in the hub as a regular “citizen”, you have to pay like, 50k per jump. Mid game, that’s pocket money. I mean, who’s even reached the hub without having a decent farm. The Hub police enforce this tax, and will attack those that don’t pay.
Okay, so the Hub (or other large civilization) gets an income of units, now what?
“Trains” and new player support.
The Hub officials now use this money to… buy cheap-ish (like, B-class explorers) ships, and/or multitools, or even trade for resources. Then, they donate it to new players. But that’s not the main point. “Trains” are.
Let’s assume Next adds multiple-personnel freighters, and other people can land in your freighter. Now, this is where stuff gets cool.
The Hub hires players with good freighter warp drives to ferry newer players, or just those that have gotten bad with the rng, to systems that have anomalies, higher level stars, you name it. Maybe like, a freighter ticket is 10k, along with a single warp cell for fuel. It would add a ton to the rp, and make multiplayer interactions really cool. Imagine being a high level player, and seeing 5 other noobs jump into your home system. Do you attack them as easy cash, or guide them along?
But then again, I know little about the Hub other than it’s got a lot of people in it, and it’s charted a ton of space.
-Main point over, closely related ideas below-
Trade routes where players from the hub jump onto a freighter and are carried to high profit systems, and share this with the freighter pilot. High money gains, but as a pirate, seeing tons of ships packed with liquid explosives (or other popular trade item) is a good gain. Large profit, large risk. These systems would be packed.
(Proper) Capital worlds. If Next adds large-scale buildings to the game, like they said you could establish colonies with other people, then we could see planets like Coruscant (obviously not that big, but you get the idea).
Proper wars. Again, I’ll restate, I know little about NMS politics, but I remember something about a war between two civilizations. That’s cool, but without pvp, that was all roleplaying and meta stuff. What about large, orchestrated battles with like, 50v50 fleets casting huge shadows over planets, setting whole systems ablaze with conflict.
Hub economy. If we can trade, we might see a new barter for players where rather than units, we’re trading ships and multitools for items and units. Let’s use this as an example:
Person 1: I don’t have a ship that has an upgraded drive, but you do.
2: And I don’t have a blaze javelin with all of it’s upgrades on my multitool.
Trade
If the hub taxation happens, we might see the hub providing ships for sale with better hyperdrives and such, if players don’t have enough money to buy the ship, we could see…
Hired services. Say someone just wants a single blueprint. Like… let’s say a warp drive theta upgrade. They pay someone credits, and hand over their ship. That person works on the ship, builds a theta, gives it back in exchange for money. “But then aren’t you just trusting someone to have my ship”. That’s where the Hub police go into play. You could report a stolen ship, and get the cops with you. However, if the other person is advanced enough, you might get your ship stolen completely.
-End of main discussion, just Next ideas below-
We need some kind of distress signal implemented in-game, or in a mod. It would add a ton. If we go back to the idea of hub police, we could get the police in on something. But if you’re just exploring, and see a distress signal, you go and investigate. It could be a player in distress, who might compensate your generosity afterwards. Or it could just as well be a squad of pirates waiting to jump you.
Please keep in mind I know little about the politics of the game, I’m just speculating.