Better (and more expensive) captains closer to the core

[Nyrin]

This isn't urgent, but there's a funny (though not unique) quirk with captain recruitment via "A Lost Friend:" you do it best by returning to iron space and steamrolling.

• The captains you get from distance 450 "A Lost Friend" are the same ones you get from distance 150 "A Lost Friend"
• You'll need to roll the dice quite a bit if you're looking for specific combinations of classes and perks
• Ergo: collecting a bunch of early-space versions of the mission and curbstomping it all it one shot is the "best" way to seek out your preferred captains

That's not dissimilar to things like building economy far away to minimize defensive needs, but given we're scaling other stuff (like trade output) with core distance, it probably makes sense to encourage players to do the most challenging version of captain acquisition and not just ignore the missions close to the core unless it's convenient.

It doesn't need to be dramatic, but having bonuses, positive trait count/distribution, or some other "goodness" characteristic of captains go up a little bit as you get closer (and conversely down a bit as you get further) would align the incentives the right way. Initial cost and salary can follow: if core captains can be somewhat better than iron-space captains, it's completely reasonable to make them a bit of a credit sink.

[FuryoftheStars]

Maybe even have these missions not spawn until a certain distance from core?  Course, that idea I think goes more into a whole rebalance of all captains (Tier 0 in iron titanium, tier 1 in naonite trinium, etc).