It's strange. I see a pirate hunting guild, but no one's ever online from it, and if there is, nobody ever reports anything to them. Escort missions are viewed as worthless, and/or free money. Even the supposed "most dangerous sector in the universe" PvP arena at Sedina B-8 is empty. Infiniboost is more useful for convenience than escape. "Shoulda paid" is much rarer than I expected.

Greyspace is no dangerzone. It has the same feel as an empty laserforce arena, a 1v1 first-person shooter game on a large map. Even the actually relevant sectors are mostly just empty (and there I'm not even talking about how 90% of the game's space is unused). This fundamental lack of action is what leads me to be unmotivated to keep playing VO.

My solution? Fill the emptiness with bots.

My main priority would be to fill the "trading trinity" (traders, pirates, and pirate hunters):

Make escort missions and/or tradeships spawn NPC pirates in Greyspace.
Or alternatively just have aggressive NPC pirates spawn, and attack either everyone, or everyone they view as "not a fighter"/"weak enough" (this targetting could also be tuned to not attack "newbie" ships, but that could be exploitable, and Grey IS meant to be dangerous).
Make NPC miners/traders with booty that is actually worth attacking, destroying and pirating them over (partially implemented, but the few convoys I've seen have all had Tridents, and been unattractive targets for player pirates, as well as being viewed with derision as targets for player piracy. I am also unsure if they spawned of their own accord, or were abandoned by a player escort. If they don't spawn of their own accord, make them). Make a variety of strengths, with the Tridents as mid-high end, and the low end being unescorted single tradeships, or single/double tradeships escorted by a single Vulture/Cent.
Make bounty hunter NPCs, who attack people with low rep IN GREYSPACE to add more penalty to having a bad rep/being a pirate, as well as possibly doing NPCvNPC on the Pirate Bots (this could also add to the faction war, as Itani who engage in the war would get hunted by Serco bounty hunter NPCs, and vice versa)(and yes, I know there's already a bounty mechanic ingame, this is in addition).

Some secondary ideas, which help to bring the game universe to life, and flare up the Itani/Serco war:
Make faction space defense less reliant on turrets, and more reliant on sectorforce like ships, so as to enable both guerilla action and full-scale raids on enemy territory.
Allow NPC escorts to be hired (possibly using the mission system, rather than creating whole new code).
Fix Itani space so that use of Alts is not practically necessary for them (somewhat unrelated, but a major source of irritation for me, as I don't want to make a Deneb alt).
Itani/Serco presence in Grey besides the arbitrary blockade fleets (small squadrons, Trident battle groups, single/two fighter patrols), so that there are ways to feel like you are participating in the war without attempting (currently semi-futile) raids on enemy space or fighting in Deneb.
Bounties on the proposed NPC pirates, or some form of reward for hunting them beyond license increase (this also kind of goes for current static-hives).

DISCLAIMER: I don't have huge experience in grey, and I'm in Australia so I play in offpeak hours. Just my observations.

+1 but at the same time with the android release this should fix the lack of players somewhat making this suggestion kinda moot.

'Roid isn't going to come close to mooting this. RETURN THE UNRATS!

+1 to the unrats.

Playing off peak does tend to give a much emptier experiance.....

NPC's need to increase when the player population is low...

So what you're saying, then, is that "NPC's [sic] need to increase" all the time.

All the time is off peak...

... says the pirate who rarely plays.

Can't imagine why :/

+1 bring back the unrats (NPCs)
This has been suggested before tho.
The unrats were borked, which is why the Guild Devs removed them a long time ago. I think when they upgraded from one NPC AI (deliverator) to a new NPC AI.

nonetheless, bring more NPCs, and add the unrats to choke point WHs in Grey Space.

I would not mind having some more aggressive NPCs. As it is though I am still new and may not be able to take on another player, it would make escorting convoys a little more interesting.

Players really aren't that scary, and death costs you almost nothing. Just go for it. It's FINDING another player to fight that's the hard part, which this is meant to partially remedy (i know, it won't make finding pvp easier, but it'll make grey more exciting). Sedina B-8 is unofficial consensual PvP arena.

The thing really is, I want to be like an Itani privateer, blow up Serco and lawless people (pirates) but the way Grey is I end up shooting at anything that moves just for action. That's why I say fix the trading trinity so I can escort player or NPC traders for some purpose instead of feeling like I'm just along for the ride, or turning to piracy so I can shoot stuff and make grey marginally more exciting and dangerous.

+1^c

Already requested many times before, with many different titles... too lazy now to look, but basically
-Add danger to grayspace as "Hive Hunting Packs", "AI privateers", Unrats, NPC bounty hunters, crazy Bots/NPCs who attack anyone in sight, more hive bots crossing the trade lanes (WH)... Lone traders, smugglers, mining parties, big convoys... whatever!

When/If more players come online, the engine can simply make them go away... Like, target 150 active ships in grayspace, where engine keeps (150-OnlinePlayers) bots running around.

"Sedina B-8 is unofficial consensual PvP arena."

/sigh

This saddens me if that's the way it's become. And I don't mean this to pick on the poster, but comment on the state of things if this is true.

There is nothing consensual about any fight in greyspace. People need to get out of that mindset. In B8, if someone waits for your consent to attack you, he's extending you a courtesy, not following a rule.

Part of what used to make this game great was the sense of danger you got from being in grey. The knowledge that; Yes, you might be ganked and yes, you might be attacked without being hailed first, made you actually feel like you were taking a risk by venturing out there.

Fair fights are a luxury not a right. Even a hail before combat is a courtesy that by no means has to be done.

Adding bots is treating the symptoms instead of treating the cause. If people are stuck in the consensual PvP mentality, adding bots will still just have a lot of people sitting around asking for fights, but with NPCs flying around. Not to mention the unrats constantly interrupting PvP again. While the unrats were in game, it was damn near impossible to fight someone without a bot jumping in and shooting you unless you both agreed to jump to an empty sector. Which is why they were eventually removed if I remember correctly.

The fix that this game needs is for people on all sides to get more aggressive with each other again. I've seen it before and it was hands down the most fun I've ever had playing this game. It actually felt like you were in the middle of a war instead of sitting around typing, "Fight anyone?". But that's a decision the players have to make. It's nice that we have so many kind pilots to offer consensual PvP and I don't want to take away from that, but the way to save Vendetta is shooting each other, not shooting more bots.

That was a lot of words to say I don't know what unofficial means, Ghost.

The mentality that it is supposed to be consensual, even unofficially, is the root of the boredom that most of us have with this game. The only reason it's unofficial is because Inc hasn't stepped in and added "Consensual PvP Only! Hail before attacking and no ganking lest you be banned!" to the sector description for B8. The players pretty much already abide by it as if it were a rule.

"Sedina B-8 is unofficial consensual PvP arena."

This statement (and Ghost's issues with it) was sort of true 4-5 years ago, now not so much. Space, it seems, has tended away from carebearness.

No offence to Ghost, but this shows how out of touch someone who pretty much only posts in the forums can become. People are aggressive to each other in non-consentual ways, much more so now than a few years ago. This has the additional consequence that pvp happens in places other than B8 quite often now compared to before, so an older player logging on might check B8, see no one in it, and declare the game dead, when in fact there are several players fighting somewhere else.

There's nothing but a FPS to VO, so there's no RP reason to tolerate the behavior you describe. That said, you and everyone else has the right to be an obnoxious little bitch all you want; others have the right to treat you, both verbally and associatatively, like what you are.

I've been subbed for the last two months. Just because I'm not logged in on Ghost doesn't mean I don't play the game. I login, start in B8, then move from Edras to Latos looking for players checking player controlled stations as I go. I consistently only find people fighting in B8 and politely asking for duels and every now and then there's people in Deneb rag bombing capships.

@Lecter: Why do you need a RP reason to tolerate it? It's not about tolerating behavior. My reason has nothing to do with RP, the RP is irrelevant. It just adds flavor. My reasoning has everything to do with entertainment. That's why we play games, isn't it? Using that same logic, if there's nothing but a FPS to VO, what's the RP reason to not shoot people?

I tend to think the game could be much more entertaining for everyone involved. Honestly, maybe I'm just bored of 1 on 1 fights, I don't know. But if you would rather sit around asking for consensual 1 on 1 fights or shooting bots over and over again, and I'm not being sardonic, maybe we're just looking for two different games.

If I'm really the only one that feels this way and this is honestly what the majority of players want out of this game, then I'll shut my trap. I just think this could go in a much more interesting direction than adding more bots. Something that has been done before and decidedly removed.

Using that same logic, if there's nothing but a FPS to VO, what's the RP reason to not shoot people?

Because VO isn't an RPG, there's no RP reason to do or not to do anything. What you're trying to say is "what's the FPS reason to not shoot people?"

The answer is easy: under certain circumstances (pretty much just in B-8), everyone enjoys the combat they do have a lot more when some fairly simple rules are understood and adhered to by all pilots present. In order to enjoy the benefit of (more enjoyable) FPS combat under those rules, people tend to adhere to them even though it means foregoing some short-term aggression opportunities.

Simple enough for you, or shall I try to keep it to words of two syllables or fewer?