I think it could be seen as being distractive from flag games A zone based on this could be nice... And with LOTS of effort it could even be amazing. Ever played Freelancer? Lots of factions, you do missions for either of them, you gain respect from them, etc. A bit of RPG elements in there... Resources being traded from one system to another (different arenas perhaps) If ASSS is ever able to provide fake players that can be, for example, larger ships (transport, cruiser) that need to be defended. It could even have turrets positioned at different places on it, if the thing is made of a couple of fake players, for example. You could blow the ship's engines, or whatever... Give them a defined path to follow and it should be doable. One step further would be to have ASSS provide AI ships for pirate ambushes or whatever. Or players themselves could be pirates and intercept convoys. Perhaps being able to buy AI mercenaries as wingmen (that don't respawn) Just throwing ideas out there... I'm aware that all this is probably way out of the scope of what you had planned, though