I posted this in the 'general' forum thread but I think it was drowned out in politics ...or it's just a bad idea. But here it is again.

Integrate some NPC activity into the SAPs for two reasons:
1.) Give defenders something to do when no one comes to attack. Currently, it's boring.
2.) Force outpost owners to actively increase stability. Currently, outpost owners do not need to even log in or be anywhere near their outpost to increase stability. As long as no one attacks they will gain points. This doesn't really promote active living on Beta.

The general idea is to spawn NPCs on or near an active SAP. Those NPCs interact with the SAP (depending on which one) to prevent outpost owners from passively gaining stability points. But NPCs should not directly make owners lose points, either. Only players aggressors' actions should decrease outpost stability. If the owner wants to gain outpost stability the owner has to be there to stop the NPCs. Obviously, if player attackers show up then you have bigger problems.

NPC specifics for some of the current SAPs

• Destructive SAPs
  Spawn Combat NPCs that shoot at your Destructive SAP, player defenders, and player aggressors. Perhaps the NPCs shoot the SAP when no one is around but directs all fire to ANY player in the area. If NPCs succeeds at 'destroying' the SAP, the defender gains no stability points. If defender stops the NPC (destroys them or tanks their fire), defender gains points. If player attacker succeeds at destroying the SAP, defender loses points.

  
  

  The mechanics here may have to get tricky since, we don't want NPCs to shoot down 90% of HP only so player can ninja the last 10%. Nor do we want NPCs to take down Destructive before player attacker gets the full hour's chance to do the same. So there may need to be some dual system: NPC shoots one thing and players shoots another, perhaps. I'm still thinking about this one. We don't want one directly affecting the other.

• Passive SAPs
  Spawn Combat NPC roaming spawn somewhere near SAP. Defender must stop the NPCs from roaming to the SAP and sitting on the passive. Same gain/no-gain/loss rules from above. Perhaps another dual system.

• Specimen SAPs
  Spawn Industrial NPCs that carry all the specimen components for the SAP. Defenders must stop them. Attackers can actually use them to gather the necessary specimen stuff. Same gain/no-gain/loss rules.

• Hacking SAPs
  Spawn Combat NPCs to hack your SAP... more or less the same as above.

The details and specifics have lots of options. Difficulty of the NPCs, how many, etc? More difficult with increased stability?

Of course, those NPCs should drop some really nice loot to the benefit of both attackers and defenders.

Overall the purpose is to incentive activity on Beta, whether it's for attackers or defenders. The system can have something for everyone. Right now it seems the defenders have little incentive to come out and play. Give them kernals.