Problem 1. Global Chat.
People take fights and turn them into verbal ones for all to see. They'll also insult others globally, hoping to get a reaction, with everyone else forming an "audience" to provide feedback for those cute/quick comebacks. Something has to change here.

SOLUTION A.
Remove global chat entirely from the game, and make it a chat room you see before you log into the game. Think Descent 3 online. You log in, see the chat room, and then may select your characters on another screen. You'll still have global-wide PM, teamchat, sector-chat, and groupchat. But you won't be able to taunt that player who you sent back to 18, and he won't be able to trash talk you.

SOLUTION B1.
Enable global chat as a sort of station-to-station communication that exists among only the largest stations and capital ships. A frigate would have a long enough range and powerful enough signal to be heard. Sector 11 & 14, would not (due to their small size). If you want to globalchat, dock at a station. This would prevent a lot of abuse (although not all, as you're still in-game).

SOLUTION B2.
Same as above, but the range is limited. For instance, Sector 18 shouldn't be able to talk to Sector 1, and Sector 5 Outpost shouldn't be able to talk to Sector 3.

Problem 2. Appearance.
We have a problem with appearance and multiple characters, which is very annoying. Back when Lin was gold, if I saw her in a place like 9 or 18, I would buzz to 3 to grab Gold's flag. Linda (another character of hers) would immediately log in in Sector 3 and wreck the cap. (I'm not complaining about her wrecking it, just how it's done.) Blitz, FiReMaGe, and others also have a character (usually) parked in their home sector. Blitz also has several character names, such as Trim and Lecent.

SOLUTION A1.
Instead of requiring every person to re-create their character every time they want to change their name, we should allow ships to be named separately from the pilot's name. A good example is me. Whether my name has been Gold 2, Serco Fighter 1, or SirCamps, my pilot's name has been Bacix Tenra. When players buy a new ship, they should be allowed to name it.

SOLUTION A2.
Disable multiple characters. Simple enough.

EDIT: Missions System Suggestion removed to another thread.

Disabling public chat= bad idea.

When no red vets are on how do you think the newbies get trained? The community just isn't big enough to limit it like that. If you're concerned about trash talk, make "t" sector chat and make /say something to be bound. Anything beyond that will do more to kill the community than anything else. Have you ever tried trading at around 10:00 PM (Chicago time)? If there is no global chat it gets really boring really fast.

Every vet learned the game on their own, Magus. Global chat being restricted to a chat room or station is not a bad idea. Besides, newbies in 1/2/3 could dock and ask questions. As it stands, most newbies don't know that you can chat in the station.

there is also the quite simple and almost cosmetical measure:
make t be defaultly bound to sector chat. that way, noobs won't spam the public chat as much. the problem with this solution is that some might never get out of s 1/2/3.

SirCamps, forgive me for maybe being dense but I didn't quite understand your solution A to the appearance problem... think you could rephrase it for me?

-outrider

ps other then that little thing, all really great ideas

I like Q1B2, Q2A1. However, I think that teamchat (for training n00bs) and sector chat should remain as they are.

I didn't suggest removing team or sector chat, just general. We have many threads going on it, but if you want to discuss it, here is the place.

Outrider, Solution A to the appearance problem is really a cosmetic one. I guess the proposed solution doesn't really fit the problem. I want to be able to name my ships and not have my nation choice be restricted by my name. Perhaps I could buy an Itani Valkyrie with Itani codes and fly in 4 unimpeded. :D