The "Goons" or "Goon Squad" have been a presence in many MMOs, and the current explosion of threads about griefing makes me suspect they might be around here too. Goons typically look to control the playing field if they can, and sometimes extort or kill other players. In Eve Online they have usually controlled much of the areas of space that aren't policed, and kill other players who enter.
This could happen in this game too. We could have swarms of players blocking off certain systems (e.g. those with rare goods, like Lave) from other players; either killing them outright if they enter or extorting them for cargo. A more ambitious goal might be to take control of all of Alliance or even more, shutting those worlds off from non-members. And when I say take control, I don't mean that in the way the game is supposed to work: gaining influence with systems and so forth, but on top of that, by locking out other players. This is all hypothetical, as I said. I don't know what they're up to.
To protect against such a scenario, FD could:
1. Hand out a bounty penalty for killing a clean CMDR of 100.000 cr. (The Pilots Federation protect their own.)
2. Not let bounties be cleared by death. (Are they now? I'm unsure.)
3. Not let bounties be cleared by paying money at a station.
4. Let players work to clear their bounties by killing wanted NPCs or players in the same system. The bounty awarded from the kill is subtracted from the player's penalty bounty.
5. Set a maximum amount of 10.000 cr to be subtracted from the penalty per kill, to prevent players working together from easily clearing bounties by killing each other.
6. Make security forces actively hunt commanders that are wanted in the system: chase, interdict and try to kill.
7. For a bounty <100k, they send a Sidewinder; for 100k-199k, an Eagle; 200k-299k, a Viper; etc. Quality of interdiction also goes up.
8. No police forces in anarchy systems.
In this manner, PVP would be free in anarchies, and still possible in friendlier space, although you might make yourself unwelcome; players would help police the systems, and working off your bounties might be more appropriate than "bribing" a station to forget. (And there would be no "carebear" space for goons to cry about.)
