One way to add some meaning to the faction system and create a measure of real risk would be to add a penalty for dying in unfreindly monitored space.

Character would be "held" aboard the nearest station controlling that space for a period of time determined by thier standing and possibly repeat offenses or bounties. On completion of that time the player would be given a free bus and shoved out the nearest airlock...and give a free ride to the closest sector out of the factions control.

Optionally players would be allowed to post "bail" and be allowed to launch immediately

At 0.1 second per rating below 0 the max penalty would be a 1.6 minute hold per offense per 24 hour period.
or 1000 credits per point so KOS would cost you 1,000,000 credits

1st offense 1.6 - 1 million
2nd offense 3.2 - 2 million
3rd offense 6.4 - 3 million

Players so captured would be given a pop up allowing informing them of thier incareration and allowed to either pay the fine or serve thier time. Time must be served in game so log off would only halt the count down.

Deneb shoud either be exempted or the player would be held by the opposing side....

I am all for some sort of penalty for dying beyond the credits required to rebuy your ship. My biggest complaint about the game is that the length of any combat engagement is determined purely by who has more time or who gets bored first. There is no other mechanic that would deter someone from returning.

That being said, I've discussed this a little in game, and the predominate reason against any other losses in combat is fear of people running more.

I like the concept behind your idea, though I wonder if it might be a little too steep a cost. Remember that a lot of veteran players have hundreds of millions, or even billions, of credits. For them, these costs are a drop in the bucket. For new players, it's enough make them cry and not want to come back. Either that, or it will severely diminish raids on opposing nationalities.

-1. If you want boring delays, go back to mining.

I don't think this would go over too well with most new players. Time-delay penalties tend to be onerous as it puts the player in a position where there literally is nothing s/he can do about the issue at hand.

Potentially losing everything in one's cargo hold and 90% of one's equipment is a steep enough penalty. Also consider that there are certain cargo items which are valued at over a hundred million credits by some players; vets probably would be the only ones found carrying such items, slanting the risk of loss in their direction as it stands. I don't think it's necessary to shift further penalties in the direction of newbies, particularly when some feel aggrieved by losing even a single ship.

(disclaimer: I'm not saying VO ought to pander to the ilk of the aforementioned respawnee; I like the fact that death happens quickly, and one can be back on one's feet in an instant. It seems as though there's a bridge that some newbies tend to fall off of: the 'zOMG I just died!' experience. Once crossing this bridge, there is a period of relief when it is discovered death is relatively painless. Unfortunately, some players never even make it this far.)

Hahahahahahahano.

-1

Blargity!

This is like some sort of bizzare solution to the problem of having no proper economy and no actual rarity of ships. If you go to pick a ship, the last thing youre concerned about is the cost or a penalty for death, if you want to make people concerned about dieing in their ship then it needs to be reflected in a broader economic sense, not having a timeout. This is boring gameplay and the wrong fix for the problem.

-1 to this blatant attempt at making carebears even safer in nation space.

So no risk for playing I guess.... and you call me the carebear?

Risk free noobing is all you want....

Its only one freaking minute

"Risk" does not have to mean wasting my time with delays.

And by the way, there are only three systems in the entire game where you can quickly respawn and rejoin the action while inside hostile territory: Verasi, Nyrius, and Azek. In all other systems, you are not allowed to dock with any station once you are hated by the sovereign nation. So trying to add a delay doesn't even make sense.

The delay is proportional to your standing - not just KOS
If a rat killed me in Itani space then I would be the one delayed.....
It also only applies to deaths in monitored space.
Its a punishment for getting caught....a very minor one at that....

the punishment is your loss of ship and cargo, there is already a time penalty involved with that and an opportunity cost with the money. If you want to use a deterrent dynamic, it should be a meta-economical one, you're essentially proposing we make the game a little bit more boring for pirates or nationalists or anyone that fights in interesting locations.

How carebear is that.

Just make the penalty a monetary amount equal to 10,000 x the sum of your levels each time you die. There can be an additional modifier based on your standing in the space where you die.