Sandbox mode also has a weird mind control factor to it. It somehow brings out everyone's inner griefer. And even though everyone's given themselves all access, there will still be one nazi trying to arrest people for "trespassing"
I would love a PVE mode (but not meteor) where the crew has to survive for some amount of time while random events keep happening. No carp, and only occasional meteors, but with a few new special events, like atmos randomly reconfiguring itself to spew plasma, or doors randomly bolting and shocking themselves. It'd be a fun mode to play once in a while, and it's always fun when the community can work together without having to be so paranoid.
We did a wave defense round once, where the crew holed up and defended against mobs. It was known as Goatmurdered. And it was beautiful.
hmmm PvE ... reminds me of the idea of a "FTL SS13".
basically instead of a station it would be a spaceship.... (yeah, big problems would be "movement" and "ship combat/weapons").
(well movement could be abstract warping between z levels for sectors and no real movement of the whole thing... or warping stuff (i.e. a ship wreck) from other "hidden sector z levels" to the "ship z level". (like the mining shuttle works))
(combat could be a abstract minigame similar to how vr goggles work... maybe the player is a rocket with a little bomb attached and moves it around after fireing a missle... and enemy weapon fire could be similar to how meteors hit the station or small warped/teleported explosives for internal damage.)
but basically:
i.e. every 10 mins (or 20 or 30 depends how the timeframe of a round should be, maybe too how damaged/powered the engines are) the "chief navigator" (could be the captain or CE) could use a console on the bridge to "warp" the ship to a new sector. with little hints if it might be a hostile, neutral (could be anything, but low chance for realy hostile) or civillian sector (for trading stations to buy supplys/ammo/food/metal with the QM or sell loot from bording/salvaging enemy/neutral/ababdoned ships or mining asteroids.).
so the captain could decide between 3 random choices and i.e. pick a civillian one to have some time for the crew to repair or to clone/heal casulties from a enemy bording or to buy more metal and food from a trading station... etc)
at round start the shipcrew could get a overall objective...i.e.
-get the nuclear disk to HQ 10 sectors away.
-patrol duty against pirates... destroy 3 pirate ships or board a pirate base some sectors away.
-rescue survivors of a cargo ship 5 sectors away and bring them to HQ (5 more sectors back).
-HQ needs supplys... gather 500 metal and 100 plasma stone. (either from mineing in a asteroid field or trading at a station or salvaging ships...)
(of course there is a chance that there could be a saboteur on the ship too, similar to how traitor rounds work. but mostly it would be more "coop/crew work together/PvE/survive/keep the ship functioning/get to hq" focused) could work well too with lower populations if there are several different ship sizes, so maybe a 7 people round just fly in a little destroyer and in a 25 people round its a big cruiser or so
well there could be a ton different ones. also objective nr1 would be always "survive and get back to hq"... if the ship/crew gets decimated too much on the way they could activate a SOS signal (similar to calling the escape shuttle)... and it could take a random time (10-20 mins?) for a random civillian ship to fly by and rescue the survivors... well or a pirate ship finds you randomly with the sos signal active and attacks/boards the ship.
new players who ready up could be thrown into a pool that is used to replace "npcs" of the sector the ship warps to (i.e. bording pirates... (imagine current syndicates), aliens hidden in a asteroid while the shipcrew is mining for metal in a asteroidbelt or living in a abandoned cargo ship the crew found in a sector and wants to loot, also as new crew that can get on the ship if the ship warps to a space station or crew that can be rescued from escape pods drifting or in stasis chambers in a damaged ship.)
it probably "could be possible" to create such a "SS13 mod"... but probably wont happen.