It would be cool if there was an uncommon NPC ship that had a chance (at least) to drop ship bots. Likely with a chance of three other artifacts (maby the basic armor, shield, and Ancient Crystal Foci).

Maby even add NPCs of the common races that could drop this. Space Pirates and such would be common, even of the common races (given that players tend to fall in said groups legions or otherwise).

There was an npc that used to drop the prisoner artifact, but haven't seen that npc in so long.

It would probably have to be for lower levels because of game balance issues. They do already have the sha'din infiltrators though. If Sha'din ambushers dropped rescued prisoners like those infiltrators used to, people would get more rank points from NPCs and artifacts than they would from levelling. That could already be the case. I've had half my terras dedicated to research for quite a while. That was one of the only reasons the whole terraformer thing actually bothered me.

Lazuli Parts Vault = enhanced ship bot.