The TempKOS system already provides a temporary penalty for putting the station at risk by fighting in close proximity to a station. I think that actually hitting the station should carry penalties as well. If nothing else, that should trigger a TempKOS, but even better would be to also apply an actual faction reduction.

I'm thinking the penalty would be 1/4 the penalty for killing somebody that faction likes. The penalty application would have a four-second cooldown per person. In other words, if you fire continuously at the station, the fastest the penalties will stack up is one application every four seconds (rather than one per hit).

Alternately, the penalty could be directly determined by the amount of damage your shots would have caused, with no cooldown between applications of the penalty. That way using avalons or flares would be punished more harshly than hitting it with a glancing spray of neutrons.

This should only apply to damage caused by weapons. Crashing your ship into the station shouldn't carry a faction penalty, IMO. If station collisions do carry penalties, collisions with the docking bay should be handled more leniently than collisions with the rest.

-1 -- until we can damage stations there should be no penalty for shooting them. The NFZ is sufficient.

-1

I am not aware of another game where attacking an object that can't be damaged incurs a reaction or penalty.

Elite! (Possibly its sequel, too)

+1

Make money fines for scratching the station by hitting it with guns or ramming it when docking or flying around.
"You have damage our station swine! Pay station guard XXX YYY credit or be shoot upon you have 1mn to comply!". Then after 1mn temp KOS until you die or pay.