Make hostile NPC encounters part of the game progression to unlock new weapons

Unlocking weapons and technologies by raiding ennemy bases would be a rewarding way to encourage players to build fighter ships and such. This could totally be optionnal for players not interested in this kind of gameplay, but unlocking weapons by fighting seems fair.

The way i see it there could be ennemy bases from T0 to T3, T0 being basically an unarmed building with no NPC and T3 big bases with heavy weapons and NPCs with late game gear.

So you start the game with T0 weapons unlocked (small pistol, light assault rifle), and to unlock new ones you would have to raid an NPC base of at least T1.

Each base would have a central building with a "safe" that contains the item (like a weapon/tech. harddrive ? Let's call it WTHD) used to unlock new techs. One you get it, you go back to your base and chose what technology to unlock, up to the Tier of the WTHD.

You could also loot the hostile base for weapons and ammunitions, but without unlocking the blueprint for it. We could also loot trophies or exclusive furnitures to decorate our base.

Each tier would unlock stronger and better weapons / armors / tools / defense mechanisms that would help you raid even stronger ennemy bases, and give a sense of progression to the game.

Of course we need a way to locate these bases because wandering on the whole planet looking for the right random encounter is not fun.