I had an idea for a ship component the other day:
Name:
Spacial Pocket Crew Cabin
Appearance Description:
A cutting edge utilization of the Ausar warp gate technology, a very small stable warp gate about the size of a human doorway with companion battery banks mounted partially inside one of the module spaces in [steele's ship]. The inside edges of the doorway glow in various customizable colors while the device is active, serving as an indicator light as to what room is currently directly connected to the doorway space. The color is currently displaying is [Random color corresponding to a set crewmate color]
Functional Description:
The pocket consumes a small amount of energy from the ship to project several superpositions of the crew cabin located on the other side of the door into a stable existence in relative local extradimensional space. It accomplishes this by using a small shield generator like device that when placed in the cabin and activated projects a very weak shield into the cabin, stopping at the perimeter walls of the cabin space, using data about the shape of the cabin to generate the analogous spacial bubbles and the doorway itself slightly alters the typical warping formula in order to point at the active projected doorway. Though the Spacial Pocket Crew Cabin may be handy as a way to 'create' space where there is none, they do come with a few drawbacks that cause them to be used only in very niche situations. Because the space is effectively converted into a possibility of the cabin in real time, should the original cabin sustain any changes the projected possibility spaces also suffer those changes, making it more risky as the number of beings sharing that same origin space increase, one hit to the hull depressurizing the origin space would see all projected cabins depressurized. There is also the issue that all incoming and outgoing particles must travel through the doorway itself since no matter or energy is lost or created via the process. Should something catastrophic happen in one of the projected spaces rendering the projected sides link inoperable, it's not as if the device can magically save states of existence at a prior time, that projected space is done for and becomes inaccessible. With the risks involved the technology isn't widely implemented in the core worlds, though for the independently minded, there is no better way to cram more inhabitants into their vessel.
Function:
By default when installed:
takes 1 module and 1 crew capacity slot
At hangars when inside ship:
Button appears under storage tab labeled "SPCC menu" when module is installed on ship, upon pressing button - menu screen for any installed SPCC(s) is brought up
Toggle crew capacity from either 1 (disabled state) or up to 6 (maximum)
In combat or wherever ship energy is used - For N maximum ship energy, reduce maximum ship energy by ((N ÷ B) * (Crew Capacity Granted - 1))
where B is (cabin volume - "some number amount players/developers are comfortable with to determine efficiency i.e 500") or for simplicity a fixed amount i.e 26.
Acquired at:
Possibly Tavros or Tarkus from either Vahn/Una after the player clears a certain lategame checkpoint or condition or some yet to be implemented npc (possibly on Dhaal since steele didn't know about it)
Cost:
expensive since it is meant for lategame, 1m+ credits
I'm sure this or something like this has been suggested before, I haven't read all the thread, this is just my take on it.