Ugly work in progress of the migrant base lay out. I got distracted by working on various random things like ZAWARUDO but I wanted to throw this up/my ideas around it before I went on vacation for the week.
Mechanically:
-Migrants "spawn" by waking up out of sleepers
-Has an engine room (the runes, I'll explain in a minute) which powers the ship/is worth it for science to steal. Feed it plasma to spawn more migrants (need power to wake them from deep sleep). Maybe unlock extra areas or functions of the ship if you feed it enough.
-Has medical room that will have a surgery table, maybe some cryo cells or other basic healing
-Room with the fabricators will have smelting machine/crafting area (to build tools to fight the monsters, and to build environmental protection to pass through the mining area)
-Ship is in a little cave with a chokepoint so its not just covered in random monsters constantly
DEEP LORE:
A crashed space ship taken over by the locals, who previously eked out miserable existences in the harsh environment before the ship fell from the sky. They worship the engine/consider the whole thing holy ground. Due to a lack of resources, the majority of the tribe will stay in sleepers for long periods of time while the priesthood "maintains" the engine by scribbling all over it (and feeding it plasma)
With the arrival of NT's mining operation, and seeing the lights of their craft moving in the sky at night, they believe their deities/rival deities/something else supernatural is going on, and wake up the whole tribe to go on a pilgrimage/holy crusade etc.
ALT LORE:
A crashed syndicate/pirate/mercenary ship shot down decades ago (or longer), the commandos inside are prepared to continue their war regardless of what year it is (or maybe they just want out). Same deal about them all being asleep awaiting rescue until now.
ALT ALT LORE:
It was an actual colony/migrant ship that got stranded. Same deal about them all being asleep awaiting rescue until now.
ALT ALT ALT LORE Fallout knockoff
It was a ship staffed solely by an insane man and clones of himself
It'd probably be possible to rotate the "flavor" of migrants, but as should be obvious from the length of words dedicated to each lore bit, I'm most attached to a bunch of holy crusaders shouting "GOD WILLS IT" as they get eaten by carp.