Cappies and Stations are something that we ALL would like to see in our hands. But there's a lot a balance issues:

1. How can someone afford them?
Look at those things! They ought to cost 50 mil or something. I know some people have that kind of money, but most people don't and nobody wants to work that hard to get their cappy. Guilds might be able to afford it, but not everyone wants to be in a guild, and others want a cappy or station that the guild doesn't have absolute control over.

2. How do you keep them from getting out of hand?
We've seen incredibly annoying greifing from people in valks and moths. Do you want to see what happens if they get a capship?

3. What happens to your capship when you're logged off / How do you protect your capship when you're logged off?
Do you just park it somewhere and hope no one kills it? And you can't hide stations, what if there's an attack while you're gone?

4. Should stations be on the map?
Will this be the end of empty space? Will every square on the map be filled?

Okay, now for my proposals:

Cappies = Stations
I think this in itself will help solve a lot of the issues I didn't mention above. Capships have turrets already. They're big enough to be stations. They can move around so you don't have to commit to one location. You just set it down in an empty sector, maybe announce your claim on that sector on the boards, Insta-station. I'll also mention this later.

You align yourself to a guild, nation, or faction for funding of your capship.
I think this would go well with the new stock market in develpment. You can align yourself to a nation or faction if you are admired. This also happens to solve the switching nations. Guilds could also align themselves with a nation or faction if all members are Respected+, or they could just be unaligned.

Once you are aligned, you have access to new missions that involve attacking enemy factions. There would also be a new way to measure your faction standing. Depending on your faction standing and the current economic wellness of the faction, you may be given possession of a capship. A 10% tax is collected from anything your traders sell. You get new missions, and you must continue to do missions for your faction or you could be replaced by someone else trying to become cappy captain. Also, if the faction is doing bad economically, your faction may recall your capship. If the cappy is destroyed, your standing will take a dive.

This solves issue of funding for capships and stopping griefers. If someone abuses their capship, just attack that faction's traders until he loses his cappy.

Programming code for Cappy and its NPC's
This could take the most work but its a neccessary feature. A player could create a code and put it into a file on his computer that the capship would follow if put on Automatic.

Just as an example, you could set the capship to run at a certain hull %.

If 25<Hull<50
Danger level = 1

When danger level becomes 1
Jump to sector H-9
Jump to sector A-8
Jump to sector N-12
GuildChat "Danger level has become 1, Capship moved to N-12, requesting backup"

You could also program station guards

Cappy Code:
If {unhostile player} attacks Capship
If 'target A' = 0
Set {unhostile player} 'target A'
Set {unhostile player} {maybehostile}

Strike force A code:
If 'target A' in sector
Attack 'target A'
When 'target A' leaves sector
Dock Capship

Cappy code again:
If {maybehostile} attacks capship
If 'target A' = 0
set {maybehostile} 'target A'
Set {maybehostile} {hostile}
If {hostile} enters sector
If 'target A' = 0
Set {hostile} target A

You could program hostile players to get maybehostile status after a period of time, or just do it manually.

And then there's code for trade convoys, but I won't get into that. A part of this could be to have NPC's ship ships and materials to your capship to sell or repair.

In case you didn't notice, I'm looking forward to gettin a capship =D

i whole-heartedly agree with the cap. ships = stations point. large cap ships should be able to fufill all the roles of a station provided adaquit staff (somone to grant and deny landing requests, somone to provide missions/rewards/punisments, etc.)

Personaly i think cap. ships should vary in price. with some being as cheep as 1,000,000cr (but those would be bairly larger than a moth and designed for a crew of 1-3 players)

the big factor limiting cap-ships will be support staff:

if you don't have the resorces of a guild you will probably have a hard time keeping your ship crewed and stocked. i believe there should be AI substitutes for all staff positions (including fighter escorts) available, but let's face it, you don't want to be paying for all those Cents your AI pilots destroy, not to mention ammunition, repairs, and the fact that AI are inevitably inferior to real people in many areas.

Also i'd like to see a series of Cap. Ship certification missions. these missions could grant XP in a new level track OR, more preferably they could grant badges coresponding to ceritfication to command a ship of X size. That way getting a cap ship of any size isn't something you just do one day becuase you have an extera 50million credits lying around.

additionaly/alternatevly having a cap ship you own destroed could inflict an XP penalty.

as for balancing cap ships:
remenber there are (theoreticly) a number of guilds who's mandate is to fight piracy, and gankers. and in any event i suspect due to the social nature of cap. ships there will be fewer cap. ship owning gankers than cap ship owners willing to come to the aid of those being ganked.

when you log off: your ship should diappear if it's yours. (if a guild wants the ship always present, they could have a bot that is always loged on be the actual owner)

as for your AI sugestion:
i'd rather see a GUI for setting general AI behavior. things like docking permission, and AI hostility levels.
then scripts could be written for more detailed behavior Ilike fooz2916 sugestion regarding an escape plan.

Ok, lord Q, you SHOULD be able to buy a cap ship if you have 50 mill just sitting around, it'd be no fun if you couldn't.

you didn't actualy read my post did you?

i recomended some cap. ships (in this case i mean ships big enough for multiple players and too big to dock using the curent means) be priced as low as 1,000,000cr (thats 1 million).

now larger and more powerfull ships would obviously cost more, however i sepcified no upper bound (becuase i don't know just how rich some player are, or what the ideal balanced econamy would support in the future)

HOWEVER:
running something the size of a HAC is inevitably more complicated than flying a fighter. you have a ship top fly, turrets to command, an air group to command, cargo and armory stoors to oversee and maintain, etc.

idealy multiple players would cooperate to fill the various positions, but failing that you'd have to do it yourself.

if buying a cap ship is as meaningless an undertaking as biying a cent is now, there realy isn't any point to them.

nope, I didn't really; my only excuse is how late it is.

Sorry.