Ok so I have been away from being in game for some time and longer still trying to do any type of pvp stuff in game untill tonight. Here's my observations on that.

First there is some incredibly nasty freeze frames going on that looks like someone using a strobe light while the shooting is going on. I did a few mins of law farming at the end and came away with 3 laws and enough scrap from the guards to cover most all my ships that I lost. I have always had some nasty 'lag' (lets make no mistake about it, the stuff I have is not technically lag at all but something quite different and for another post)

Second my combat skills sucks ass, lets make no mistake about that at all, it's been ages since I have done any type of pvp stuff and I barely rem how to navigate correctly.

Third those who were out of the kiddy pool and in sedina b-8 tonight didn't take to kindly to a noob coming in. After all was that not the point of FF getting turned off recently? So you could shoot anyone that moves in gray space and is gray space not 'dangerous' not only from 2nd time around combat noobs like myself but from the dreaded skanky so called pirates?

On that it seems to be that pvp stuff is not easy by far and from some searches on the forums I could not find anything decent to help out in that area.

Also I dont recall this one. After I died the first time I was left out in space for a good 20 seconds or so before I saw the station buy back option. Had something changed in the game to cause this? Saw this one several times. Did show some cool effects but it would be better I think if the effect was in the 3rd person and you can see the other ships moving around and your space trash you left behind.

Overall I have to say that the pvp stuff in vo is highly coveted, flaky at best and dominated by some weird unwritten rules (which I have yet to figure out, after all it *IS* gray space is it not?)

If you're floating around for thirty seconds after your ship goes boom, you're probably looking at actual lag, not some graphical glitch from bad lua plugins.

Also, I don't really understand to what you're saying about b8. The people there didn't take kindly to your presence but didn't shoot you?
How is that related to turning FF restrictions off?
How is gray space any more dangerous from you being in it?
What?

Also, I totally feel your pain on the whole "weird unwritten rules" point of pvp.

What's considered polite in B8 is something like the following:

Don't attack people who are already in a fight
Hail before attacking
Stop fighting if your opponent asks
Don't use guided missiles
(maybe) get consent before initiating combat

I don't think most people expect anyone to follow these outside of B8, but most people hanging out there expect a fair, tactically unsound fight.

except that like b8 is in greyspace and there are no rules in greyspace

PVP rules vary from person to person

All the weird things you described are the symptoms of bad internet lag/packetloss. Being stuck after death means the server's communication of where to go didn't make it to the client (or the client wasn't able to tell the server that you died).

Something is definitly up with your connection, the buyback menu should come up within 2 or 3 seconds of dying.

Overall I have to say that the pvp stuff in vo is highly coveted, flaky at best and dominated by some weird unwritten rules

I see Coherent is not your first language.

There are no official rules in B8, or in the entire universe for that matter. Anyone can do whatever they want within the game mechanics, the VO "Rules of Conduct", and the EULA. However, 90% of the players who hang around in B8 follow some basic etiquette. It is by no means official or anything, but it has existed for many years. Basically, B8 is the consensual pvp sector. Players go there to participate in 1 on 1 fights or consensual group fights. Obviously, it doesn't always work out that way, but that's why people go to Sedina B8 for the most part. I'm not passing judgement as to whether that is the way it should be, but that's the way it is.

Any kind of "strobelight" lag, and buyback failing to show up for 20 seconds (?!) sounds like a client-side and/or network connection issue. If you were homed in a sector that makes use of the high-resolution "bone" asteroids (but there aren't many station sectors that do..), you might want to try enabling texture compression and turning on "preload textures", and see if that helps. The textures might be swapped out due to insufficient texture memory, and swapping them back in could take some time (although usually not 20 seconds). Beyond that.. it could be a network issue between you and the server, or there's a small chance it could be related to the sector startup. If you tell us what exact sector, we can check if that specific PRM has grown excessively (too many AI path waypoints to process, causing extended startup times).. but that was patched awhile back and I'd be surprised if that were the case.

Generally speaking, I'd suggest trying a completely vanilla install of the game, without any plugins, and the default graphics settings, and make sure you don't have any other network-related stuff running on your network (torrents, p2p filesharing, etc).

My linux box is a PIII 933 with 512mb of ram and a GeForce3 Ti200 with 64MB, and it runs PvP pretty well. Border Skirmish gets a bit crusty, but is still usable.