My question is about the main focus of the ship being data running. I understand that with scripted AI you can collect data from NPCs, but versus other players, and maybe it's beyond the scope of the question for the ship, how do you incentivize players to use data in game, to store information in game and use communications in game, so that a ship is able to collect or intercept this type of information from them?
TL;DRPlayers can scan other players and, if stealthy, intercept a data transmission such as a mining-field discovery and sell it on; the answer doesn't address incentives for storing data.
Players, provided they're somewhat competent, should always be more than a match for NPCs. You can always hire... AI can just go beyond what players can do if we wanted to. But that's a big level investment in terms of hiring people or bribing people on the other end of it to sort of offset that. I don't know where I'm going now.
Also, I think what you're asking there is, will you be able to acquire data from another player, as in scan them and find out where their weaknesses are? Yes. So let's say you get someone who's trying to send a transmission. He just found the richest mining field in the history of the UEE, and he's trying to sell the data to another guy. They're starting the data transmission. If you are there, you're stealthy, no one notices you, you might be able to acquire the same transmission, the same data, and sell it to someone else.