That's sounds like reasons to play the game to me. What's so punishing about that? And as we do not know how upkeep, debt and decommissioning works, I have no idea if its a punishment or not. It souns suspiciously like a consequence, which I have nothing against. Games without consequences to seem a bit pointless. Games that are win win win sound a bit boring to me.
Games do not need to have a consequence due to IRL absence, having such is punishing to players and ultimately a loss to the game.
atm I am not playing elite at all, but went back to a MMO I hadn;t played for 2 years... do you know what I lost? absolutely NOTHING, all my characters, inventory and items were there exactly as I left them.
I know - lets go to another game I havent played for ages... in that game I would have lost NOTHING...
Lets try a third.. or a fourth... or a fifth game - nope everything I had in those games is exactly where I left it, no punishment, no loss of items or progress, no loss of ANYTHING.
Yet now FDev want to take things away from players who stop playing because of lack of content, lack of fun or IRL causing a player to stop playing.... they then come back in 3 months, or 6 months, or 2 years, hell the MMO i'm playing at the moment a player just returned after 9 years and they still had all the items and currency they had when they left.
you take things away from players and it is a punishment, you dont retain players by punishing them and that you keep defending that....well lets leave it there