Only way to make the mission longer is to spawn an extra enemy AI. 1v1 become 1v2 match or 2v2 become 2v3 match. That definitely increases the mission times even when flying against dumb enemy AI. Either that or get the ROM AI to stay cloaked all the time.
3v3 mission becomes 3v4? Now, that's a firework show.
Don't make me break out the "Frog Gun" again Karnak
Any change that would lead to longer ai mission times is not good for the game, especially with the lower player numbers of today as strategic fluidity of a campaign is impaired.
I've always felt the key to the mission time discrepancy lie in making a fast flipping PvP ineffective option for races with longer mission times. My thoughts being a early version of a PF tender with INTs available for the Gorn and Roms at server start. Of course if you balance the other races against the Mirak mission times, you will have to balance the Mirak PvP ability vs those same races. Most mirak ships don't have a prayer vs a plasma chucker who can do 31 and recharge chucking plasma over his shoulder at speeds the mirak ships cannot keep up with and rearm at as they were not designed for plasma fighting.
Oh NO!! Not the FROG GUN!!
The problem with the early PFT for all races approach is that you are then forcing all races to fly like Mirak. Not something every non-Mirak player wants to do.
I can understand your reasons for not wanting extra AI spawn for players flying droners or PFTs or whatever ship, and the Mirak are definitely at the bottom PvP wise which is why I pretty much took the issue out of the mission source code, and put it as an optional configurable feature in the shiplist.txt file. Personally, I would not use it unless the ship's BPV (including full loadouts) went into BCH range (ie. 200 plus territory).
I definitely think that anyone flying a BCH, DN, and/or BB deserves extra AI in the missions cuz otherwise they are too easy for them. Plus, heavy iron ships are meant to be escorted and rare on the dyna. So, on the dyna, when I always find DN AI popping with the regularity of FFs, I find the mission to be quite amusing and has an icky un-realistic tone. DN AI should be reserved for special fleet action and/or planet/base missions which is why I took DN AI out of EEK patrols. If you're flying a BCH, DN or BB in a PvE EEK Patrol mission, you'll get an extra enemy AI, but no DN AI will show up.
Anyway, I really want a working SQL Server kit so we can put the mission times and disengagement rule debates to rest by having the server kit give bonus DV bumps for PvP wins.