I understand that NPC hunting already has pretty nice perks, complex tech parts, artifacts and good exp, however this would serve a separate purpose then most current badge rewards. That in mind it could still be possible to have badge rewards but I suppose that depends on your reaction.

Black badges would actually have 2 color patterns. One that doesnt change (the shield part) and one that does depending on what faction of NPC you killed (the star in the middle)
For instance say you kill a laluzi ship you would gain a black shield with a blue star on it, or a crimson blade ship would be black shield with red star.

You could use badges gained from other factions to purchase artifacts from an opposing faction. In general it becomes a glorified bounty system. Now these artifacts wouldnt be cheap. For instance a crimson obelisk is fairly easy to find but would probably cost 15-30 opposing (non crimson) badges to purchase. Players would also only start with a small market of items to choose from, the most common. It would cost opposing badges to unlock more.

Some of the more rare would require other forms of payment as well; political favor, tech parts, prejorian tech, exotic matter, credits, artifacts, perhaps even other badges.

This would allow for a new market for players to have fun with and could be integrated strongly into a player driven market acting as an NPC hunters currency over credits or simply as a secondary currency. Perhaps they could even be traded for credits and vise-versa giving players something to buy with credits aside from upgrades and upkeep.

Of course normal artifacts that give + damage given or - damage taken from NPC's for XX number of black badges (in which case the two color scheme would be unnecessary) However I personally don't think that's justified given the current perks to NPC hunting.

Everything else gives more purpose to hunting NPC's just like the other badges helped with player hunting, raiding and hacking.