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Please, please, please make it so that NPRs generated in-game can be like this.I would much rather encounter a new NPR around the time that our exploration frontiers begin to overlap, rather than exactly when my exploration frontier reaches their home system.Currently, Aurora only generates new systems as they are entered for the first time, which is why non-game-start NPRs are always discovered in their home system.What if Aurora instead created systems ahead of the explored frontier by a number of hops (possibly a game configuration parameter)?Those systems would exist unknown to the player (or any NPR) until discovered.If a new NPR is generated in such a system, Aurora can follow the process you describe above to expand the NPR outside their home system, backfilling some or all of the systems between their home system and the currently explored frontier (and also expanding in the other direction from their home system, away from the explored frontier).Most of these "exploration buffer" systems won't contain new NPRs, of course.To avoid unnecessarily increasing calculations during turn processing, Aurora can leave uninhabited, undiscovered systems in stasis--no need to calculate orbital motion (or anything else) on a system that nobody yet knows about.
I think something along those lines could be great. If an empire is generated a number of jumps away but you never get around to explore further in that direction it could also mean it could find you first. Maybe a limit on larger unencountered empires would be needed so things doesn't spiral out of control.
