This looks like a great way to spend an evening's limited playtime. Maybe this is when they realised some actual crime and punishment might be a thing?
/sarcasmoff
Fines are unlikely to dissuade players with enough cash to cover multiple Vette rebuys at ~30 mil each but I hear ya. I'm sitting in a CG station wondering if it's worth dipping my toe in OPEN for the first time in 2600 hours. Do I want to sacrifice my Cobra, or get the much cheaper to rebuy Viper first, or just forget the idea and do something else?
Something has gone a bit off the rails, kinda like the real world now I think of it, when a faction of extremely hostile psychopaths has focused all their efforts on cheating up more money than god because all the legit money making avenues have been nerfed to stop above mentioned faction... Leaving others with no way to catch up or compete.
Recently the missions seem to have been boosted a little and I've been pleasantly surprised with my return on investment. The ruins mission can be quite lucrative if you're prepared to collect the same data multiple times. I can see FDev trying to level the playing field and patch the loop holes but is there a better way to stop people looking for them?
Any prolonged, repetitive activity is work, including cheating with exploits so I'm not actually devaluing the amount of time and effort some have more successfully devoted to the game in terms of cash rewards. But guys, do you really have to chase people across the galaxy, kill them multiple times and totally bum their game so they'll swear at you?
Do these people not get that they're shooting themselves in the foot and nobody will want to play with them if they behave like that? We know you have wake scanners, and interdictors, the tools are there to make someone regret logging in but is that smart? Do you really have to kill the same target over and over and over until they log back out?
If you bother to RP at all, take the four tons of cargo that FDL will carry and go away!