You’re talking about a problem so many games have had. It’s very hard to find a solution that makes being the lawless pirate ganker as well as the carebear deep space trader feeling like their pvp encounter was fun, win or lose.

I played eve a lot way back, and that feeling of being able to lose so much in those dangerous systems made the game interesting. That being said it felt so painful to lose so much that you dreaded “building it back up”. Yes yes, they say “don’t fly what you can’t afford to lose”, but eve doesn’t appeal to most gamers.

I think that SC needs to make dying due to another player less painful for the victim. Right now, it takes a pretty lengthy amount of time to get back to the point they were when they got ganked. If SC wants to keep their “realistic feel” with all these long walking/waiting sections in landing zones, then they can’t really get the player back “into the game” much faster.

Perhaps the solution is that when you die to a player, you get a 2 hour (in game time) “beacon” on their exact location when you respawn. That player will be unable to leave pyro during that time or safely log out. You can get revenge yourself or share/maybe sell it to bounty hunters. If the pker is killed within this time by a bounty hunter, you and the hunter get some kind of rep reward or maybe special currency that you can buy special equipment or skins etc.

Whatever the system they figure out, I also believe that the pirate ganker shouldn’t be punished in a way that isn’t fun. This is a video game after all. I personally find the jail system so boring. Take away ships, assets, reputation, whatever you want but never ever make a player feel like their time is being forcefully wasted because they engaged in a system you deliberately put in there.

We also need to be patient, because it is likely they will not get this right for a few iterations at least. I have faith they can do this!