I'd be surprised if this hasn't been suggested before but I couldn't find it. Edit: (Since posting It's been suggested a bunch of times ) EVE online obviously is the inspiration here, as it is for many aspects of Atlas. But it seems to be that Atlas is really missing the tensions and drives that make a game like EVE so great. Emergent behaviour, risk, freedom. You give the players a robust set of tools and they will create more excitement and content than a team of designers ever could.