I understand your problems with this, but you can disable enemy spawn, or just dock your ship to a homebase. I have docked 1km long capitals before without problems. You can really, just dock your ship if you don't want anything to happen to it. And currently, the weapons are already being ironed out, and the AI was just an experiment in the latest patch.I'm out for the time being, as well. My friends and I had been waiting for this big update before jumping back into the game, and I was the guinea pig who came back to test it. I spent the last week figuring out the changes and building out a new capital ship. I'd gotten a large chunk of the hull done, and mounted some defensive cannon turrets. That might have been the mistake. When a couple of pirates flew by my turrets engaged them. They hosed down the pirate, but after ten minutes it became obvious they were ineffective. The target was sitting in an adjacent sector, and while I was seeing regular damage numbers, a closer inspection revealed that the Isanth was totally intact. Soon after that, a pack of pirate Isanths showed up and joined the fray. Some of these carried missile launcher. In short order my capital ship was reduced to a mass of glowing craters and the remnants of the turrets were spinning off into space.
It seems, having had that experience, that I might want to wait a little longer until they get the AI and weapons ironed out a bit more. That was about 50 million credits and a week of effort lost in about a minute's time, with my defenses completely nullified because of problems firing across a sector boundary.
Yet, I don't understand how small problems (not even problems in my opinion), could scare away players. Do note, AMCs were overpowered, and turrets were so accurate you'd just get instakilled the second you enter one's range. The changes to this remove the "Bigger is better hurr durr" logic. And if you can't stand such changes, you have been spoiled by the old systems. (same goes for all of you who leave because of the patches *ahem ahem*)