Shynras

Ships are going to be made out of blocks, even in the "survival world" and you'll be able to modify them whenever you want. There's no reason to limit building in certain zones. 

B2P is not a sustainable model for a MMORPG that wants to last for many years. Why? Because the money you get from the sales is limited, while you need to pay the team and the server indefinitely, so it would need a cash shop or a DLC/Expansions system.
 
-Noone wants a cash shop that give any sort of advantages. A Cosmetic only cash shop wouldn't be enough to mantain the game financially. 
-Forcing the devs to create Expansions every 1-2 years, just doesn't make sense. This game is not about dungeons and gear progressions, so they can't sell that. They can't sell "new maps" like world of warcraft, because the map is already huge and free to explore. They can't sell ships/stations since you can already build whatever you want by yourself. Creating an expansion for a game like this one, would mean creating new blocks limited in use to the ones that bought it. 
-Creating an expansion would even force devs to create content that don't really fit into the game (like unnecessary blocks) just because they need something that can be sold in the game. And maybe in this case they would not have time to rework, let's say the "contracts system", because it's not something that they can sell as an expansion, even if it is much more needed than those crappy new blocks.
-If you compare a B2P priced like 40$ VS a P2P with a 2-4 weeks trial, I'm pretty sure about who's going to attract more people. 
 
You're saying that many AAA games failed in the last year with the P2P system. Not sure about what games you have in mind, but if we take Wildstar or TESO for example, they failed because they were boring, not because the P2P system. 
 
A P2P system works in sandbox mmos, because they're always fun (if well made).

I personally don't think anything should "vanish", beside, maybe players.
 
Regarding ships:
-People will just log off in dangerous situations. A 10 sec cooldown will not always be enough, because this game is probably not gonna be just close range combat, so you'll often have 10 sec of time before the aggressor shots you. More than 10 sec cooldown is going to be annoying for people to wait. 
-You're probably gonna have more ships, spread across different planets. What's going to happen to those? Every single construct you own is going to disappear at the same time?
-What if you are a leader of a corporation and you're piloting a ship with 100 of players inside it?
It would be so frustrating and unfun, that i can't imagine this is what the devs want. 
 
Regarding players:
Still a player could just log off in the middle of a fight. Let's say you are winning a fight with your ship Vs his own, and he knows he's going to die. He would just take all the stuff he can from the storage, and would log off. Even in this case, the best way to balance this would probably be: when you logoff your character go sleep, and doesn't vanish. This would require for people to build escape pods, and stuff like that, and would add more depth to the building system, and to other sections of the gameplay. 
 
Regarding autopiloting:
My guess is that, an autopilot should be just something that gets scripted by the players. So players could come up with some system that automatically send their ship to a safe location, but I wouldn't want it to be "standard"
 
Regarding being harder to detect:
I feature like this could be fine as long as the ship can be detected from a relatively close range. It just can't vanish.

I think this is a really important matter so I'd like to give my opinion as an avid sandbox (and voxel-based games) player, hopefully it helps. For me giving the possibility to build "Landmark style" is not a good choice:
1)You need to enter a mode where your mouse moves your pointer instead of your camera (clunky, confusing)
2)Since you can't move your camera, you often doesn't even use your wasd to move your character (to avoid losing vision), and if you do it, it feels cluncky, since you still can't move your camera
3)To make this mode viable, you will probably be able to place blocks from a good range, and this will not give a player the feeling he's really building, it would feel a lot more like a 3d modeling software than a game
 
Regarding the building with your crosshair:
1)You need to directly place blocks, you need to move, jump to reach any spots and you always have the chance to see your creation from a different perspective.
2)You need to climb on to the top of your ship, you'll need to create ladders, scaffolding and stuff like that. It would feel more realistic. You're directly moving, placing blocks, removing them, shaping your creation. Not being able to place every single block with a crosshair view, is actually, imho, a good thing, because it make the game feels realistic, you'll need to find a solution by yourself to reach that spot and add depth to the game. 
 
In any case I'll be happy wathever you do, I can deal with that

Any kind of safezone, would kill the pvp, the economy and the social aspect of the game. This is one of the most common ways a game fails nowadays.
A complete anarchy should be fine, as long he community will be able to build public and relatively safe social hub

As far as it could seem cool to build such a huge creation, you'll probably get bored (or die) before it's completed. Regarding the actual size of planets, I think that's perfect like it is now, for the following reason:
 
-Less dispersion of player, more pvp.
-You can easily find Bases/Social HUBs
-Resources on a planet will deplete faster, so colonizing make more sense. If you live in a huge ass planet that has so many resources you'll never be able to use, colonizing doesn't play a role.
-Colonizing means exploration.
- and more

B2P is not a sustainable model for a MMORPG that wants to last for many years. Why? Because the money you get from the sales is limited, while you need to pay the team and the server indefinitely, so it would need a cash shop or a DLC/Expansions system.
 
-Noone wants a cash shop that give any sort of advantages. A Cosmetic only cash shop wouldn't be enough to mantain the game financially. 
-Forcing the devs to create Expansions every 1-2 years, just doesn't make sense. This game is not about dungeons and gear progressions, so they can't sell that. They can't sell "new maps" like world of warcraft, because the map is already huge and free to explore. They can't sell ships/stations since you can already build whatever you want by yourself. Creating an expansion for a game like this one, would mean creating new blocks limited in use to the ones that bought it. 
-Creating an expansion would even force devs to create content that don't really fit into the game (like unnecessary blocks) just because they need something that can be sold in the game. And maybe in this case they would not have time to rework, let's say the "contracts system", because it's not something that they can sell as an expansion, even if it is much more needed than those crappy new blocks.
-If you compare a B2P priced like 40$ VS a P2P with a 2-4 weeks trial, I'm pretty sure about who's going to attract more people. 
 
You're saying that many AAA games failed in the last year with the P2P system. Not sure about what games you have in mind, but if we take Wildstar or TESO for example, they failed because they were boring, not because the P2P system. 
 
A P2P system works in sandbox mmos, because they're always fun (if well made).

B2P is not a sustainable model for a MMORPG that wants to last for many years. Why? Because the money you get from the sales is limited, while you need to pay the team and the server indefinitely, so it would need a cash shop or a DLC/Expansions system.
 
-Noone wants a cash shop that give any sort of advantages. A Cosmetic only cash shop wouldn't be enough to mantain the game financially. 
-Forcing the devs to create Expansions every 1-2 years, just doesn't make sense. This game is not about dungeons and gear progressions, so they can't sell that. They can't sell "new maps" like world of warcraft, because the map is already huge and free to explore. They can't sell ships/stations since you can already build whatever you want by yourself. Creating an expansion for a game like this one, would mean creating new blocks limited in use to the ones that bought it. 
-Creating an expansion would even force devs to create content that don't really fit into the game (like unnecessary blocks) just because they need something that can be sold in the game. And maybe in this case they would not have time to rework, let's say the "contracts system", because it's not something that they can sell as an expansion, even if it is much more needed than those crappy new blocks.
-If you compare a B2P priced like 40$ VS a P2P with a 2-4 weeks trial, I'm pretty sure about who's going to attract more people. 
 
You're saying that many AAA games failed in the last year with the P2P system. Not sure about what games you have in mind, but if we take Wildstar or TESO for example, they failed because they were boring, not because the P2P system. 
 
A P2P system works in sandbox mmos, because they're always fun (if well made).

P2P is the only way to keep the game alive and evolving.