The abillity to raid stations of an opposing nation would be pretty cool... Like to loot cargo, maybe even steal ships. Another idea would be to board capital ships if your using a fighter to plant bombs or something.... Kinda even the tides. =D
Also how about tuning your ship for a little more tweakage. Like the old standby of Top Speed vs Accel.

Check these out:

Regarding capturing stations:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14744
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14502

Regarding more customization and weapons and stuff:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14626
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14721
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/14728

These are things that are being discussed pretty intensely right now, and that I would also really like to see in the game. The problem is that most people are afraid that more customization options willb ecome too complicated and will scare away newbies. Especially the fuel suggestion.

Don't listen to those simpletons! Complicated gameplay is a good thing as long as the game is possible to play in a simple manner.

Amen, Snax! Simple options, with the possibility of getting into the gritty details if you are so inclined. Kind of like using a Mac: it's easy to use out of the box, and if you want you can customize everything.

when player owned capships are available, and guild-based / community orebanks are implimented, the hacking & boarding of ships may be more likely.

with the ability to board a capship; a purchase could lead to a wait-period, then a priv msg to pick up your cappy in a certain station sector.

then once boarded the player may set a password for boarding. (this also allows for first-come, first-served thefts)

being that the player must fly into the cappy to engage it, that is the way he will leave if "hacked".

not being a fan of piracy myself, i would like a long tedious process for this hack to happen. and something that cannot be an alias/bind.

"(this also allows for first-come, first-served thefts)" - HECK NO!!! WTF??!!

"that is the way he will leave if "hacked" " -- Um, this thread was talking about hijacking, not hacking them... Ownership of vessels should never be able to be transfered unwillingly without the ship either being in storage in a station or disabled in space.

i would imagine that there could be or should be a sml port scanner that could take X amount of time to scan the ship's computer. this will allow a ship's password to be cracked and gain access to the cappy's docking bay.

that's what i mean by hacking.

No, there should be no access to capital ships or stations of unwanted persons.

Unless the ship is disabled/abandoned, of course.

Provided disabling/disbanding was implemented, of course. And I'm not very fond of that idea. But that's just me. Wait, Celebrim opposed it, too, I think.

ok i agree ther should be a comand that si /board ;name of person; and they have to be near you any one agree

No, Professor Chaos, not even if it is disabled (you should have to tow it back to a dock/hangar and then it is yours - and presumably you want yourself allowed on your own ships). Ships should never count as abandoned; even if you are the last person aboard and you leave your cappy to mine in a moth, the ship is still yours and should not allow anyone on who isn't supposed to get on (though of course disabling something with no return fire ought to be relatively trivial). Okay, MAYBE you should be allowed to capture a captial ship in the field...

How about this:
When a capital ship is disabled, it starts a 5 minute timer. After the 5 minutes are up, if the ship has not been undisabled [repaired] in that time, life support fails and all current crew perish. At this point, the ship counts as a shipwreck with no ownership and, if repaired, will give the option of ownership to the first person to dock with it.
-- Well, this sounded good to me until I realized/remembered that not all capital ships can be docked with.. Drat.

As far as boarding goes, I think that when you get a ship, it should not let anyone else board by default; one can then add individual names and groups who may board. If you are not on the list and wish to board, you must hail the capital ship and await the captain's permission (while they change the list to add you).