have you ever played a game that has open pvp? most don't kill players farming unless you belong to a waring faction and they are attacking the supply chain.
griefers and small solo players attack everyone for no reason. bigger factions try to protect there PvE players.
griefers and small solo players attack everyone for no reason. bigger factions try to protect there PvE players.
Your argument is not reliable, I played Eve for years, NO faction(no matter how large) is able to protect you from someone if they want to grief you in that game. 90% of "PvP'ers" in that game are griefers. Most "PvP" ships are built to quickly kill PvE ships and then run away unscathed. You could probably combine all the "PvP" players from all the space sims minus the arcade games like squadrons, and you still wouldn't have a fraction of the number griefers in Eve.
I primarily did PvE in Eve, since the war, I fought in a few of the major battles and killed a few supers but the tidi wore me out and I just asset safetied my super and all my assets, there is no way to PvE in null anymore that suits my tastes in profit without getting griefed/hotdropped.
That said, Starbase IS NOT EVE. Factions/alliances have little to offer or gain from Eve like numbers. In Eve it is sovereignty control and ratting/mining rights in return for defending the space. PvP and space control in this game cannot be enforced by an alliance/faction unless there are Eve like mechanics that governs space and all the systems in between that enable those interactions. Which from what I understand as of this time; there are no such mechanics/systems in Starbase. There is also the limit to how many people can be in a fleet battles that the game can take before it starts to break. ie. desync/lag/crash. Which if over 50 I will be surprised honestly.
Eve took MANY years to implement all the systems to enable that kind of gameplay, they didn't just suddenly poof alliances and faction play into existence because it is cool. Starbase needs to have a solid playerbase before anything else right now, that seems to be what the devs are focusing on with these implementations and roadmap. Playing more to the strengths of the platform they have => Shipbuilding/PvE stuffs. MMO Space Engineers with trading sort of, but better.
Systems are needed to prevent people/factions from attacking the small group/solo players in this game, like the civ cap, you can put the SZ and warp ability on the stations too for all I care. Otherwise the playerbase will remain small, why do I have to repeat myself so much for you guys to understand this.