Well, thats what Chris says on the subject:
Seems like there is some serious passion on PvP!
Firstly, I would ask people to give the game a chance before you assume its going to be broken in one way or another.
I do not like any game that allows super high ranking players to prey on people just getting started. Sitting on a spawn point blasting people isn’t cool in MP FPS games and there will not be that dynamic here.
Having said that I want the game itself to handle this organically. I’ve stated elsewhere if a player is attacking players inside the safe areas of the empire that are heavily policed, they will not only have to deal with force of the empire, but also there will be a bounty on their head – and so Bounty Hunters can engage in legal PvP against the transgressor. In addition if your engaging in unlicensed PvP in a safe area and get your ship destroyed, unless there’s a partner in crime nearby to grab you quickly, you’ll be captured by the authorities and you’ll have to pay a “bribe” to escape to liberty far outside of the empire’s reach (essentially putting your re-spawn a long way away). I’m also toying with the idea that unlicensed PvP could void some insurance policies (the idea here is that you would need special black market insurance if you’re going to engage in high risk PvP in areas you shouldn’t). Don’t take this as gospel, as you should not lose your pledge ship, but I’m trying to illustrate the ideas I’m kicking around to try and handle this in the SC universe like the real world – you can’t stop crime, but the penalties for committing it are pretty high in the civilized world. Of course if you’re in the gulf of Aden, its everyone for themselves.
So there can be PvP in safe areas but it would have very high risk and it really wouldn’t be worth the bother just to pick on low level players. I could see this happening for high level mob hits, a big time heist and the like, but if’ I’m going to engage in PvP in a safe area there better be a big reward or I get paid a lot (which is kind of like the real world)
Hope this makes sense!
source:
http://www.robertsspaceindustries.com/forums/topic/so-is-there-forced-pvp-or-not/page/5/