Its some time but another idea: this turret as part of an multistage bossfight.
rest of the ship isnt finished but if it finished it should assist the other three ships of my triple bossfight from far away
so pretty.... even tough it seems to be only partially done
[doublepost=1503526966,1503524926][/doublepost](this one is going to be a bit cliche and somewhat odd but hey its just a brainstorm)
Grey Goo
If you know what grey goo is then this should be pretty obvious but for those who don't, grey goo is basically an autonomous systems (most sci-fi I've seen has showed it as a collection of self replicating nano-machines) that have 4 commands:
1. Find resources
2. Break down the resources into usable compounds
3. Build more Grey Goo
4. Repeat
Grey Goo would start off at the beginning of the game as a almost non-existent threat but over time grow exponentially stronger as they consume more systems (literally eating the stars and everything around them to make more nano-bots) with the new universe update it would make them even more dangerous with the limited resources.
The single player game play could become something, like how in mass effect your trying to unite as many factions as you can to fight off the reapers, in which you attempt to gain the support of as many factions you can or attempt to build up as large a fleet you can before attempting to stop the expansion of the grey goo before they become basically unstoppable.
Ancient Weaponry
Ancient lost warships from the first people to combat the grey goo could contain a weapon that is extremely effective against the grey goo but can not be produced by the player only found in the ancient wreck and not be very effective as normal ships.
These wrecks could also still be functional meaning if you wanted the weapon you would have to be able to fight for them of course they would be heavily damaged because of the combat with grey goo and there could be some wrecks completely disabled with bits of story and lore about the war with the grey goo.