Currently, pteravores are only seen in their nests. While few details on this species are available ingame at present, it looks like they're some kind of space-life that eats pteracnium. They cause havok on ships that they encounter, and so on*.
As a quick possibility for making them turn up a bit more, it might be worth making all asteroids with pteracnium have a small chance of having 1-3 pteravores inside, feeding on the ore. When the player or an NPC ship hits the asteroid with weapon that causes fragments to fly off the asteroid, or tries to mine it, they get disturbed and fly out to attack the nearest ship(s). This could be indicated in rumors at mining stations and other bases to give hints that this can happen (miners, regardless of faction, should probably be the natural enemy of pteravores). If implemented this should be done so that shooting over and over again doesn't make the probability of a pteravore encounter approach 1.
Pros: Pteravores turn up more often, and can cause interesting results if they turn up in the middle of a battle. Introduces players to pteravores earlier in the game in small numbers, so they aren't deluged when they encounter a nest for the first time (Lack of nests earlier in the game can be justified by the species not having spread there in great numbers yet, unfavourable solar conditions, or just the locals killing all the nests over and over again to let them mine more safely)
Cons: Mining becomes a bit more 'Fun' for people who do it, possible new YASD during asteroid combat.
*although we don't actually see this except in a single mission, and whenever the player does something stupid. It'd be nice to see what happens when a pteravore swarm manages to get into a refinery full of pteracnium like a ferian colony.
