I\'ve been pointing this out seveveral dev builda ago. I even went so far as to post about it in the news page. but I have totally ignoored.
This is an AI error, the system handling AI\'s, is pretty simple and rudimtally dunb. all entities not controlled by the player are controlled by this system. this is handling things according to a faction based flag system. when you make a faction on servers, you are setting your place in this system. you are set neutral, hostile, or friendly in relation towards the other factions of the game, which always include the two NPC factions.
what is going on here, is they are not actually attacking the shop. they are attacking the NPC in the shop. Im assuming this happed to you at spawn the original shop you spawn in next to right? if not correct and enlighten me.
well, if so, they are attacking the NPC not the shop. The NPC was never protected and therefore it is fair game, and if they kill it, you will effectively be cut off from hiring crew. this is bad. because of this all you can do is reset universe and try agian, and hope to hell you spawn in without argoing pirates. effectively this bug is a show stopper one that needs priority.
really all that is needed is that the trade npc\'s need to be flagged as protected like the shops are, but this needs to be done so that hired crew are not. I would sugest this protection mite be resolved by flagging factions accordingly. pirates are hostile thus klilling them in whatever form is no problems, all trade federation ships and structures are neutral, attacking thier shops and ships are flagged as protected so they will call for help, NPC\'s however are new thus maybe they arent protected yet?
now looking at pirates if you test this they are doing the same things as well, if you attack one they will attract other pirates within the area as well, unless you kill it before they engauge, so they may work fundimentally the same way. Im just guessing here, im not a programmer, so im rather ignorant on how it works. maybe its just bad timing, the trade federation is getting NPC\'s and they are new, so maybe they just arent cummunicating with the other entity types. so maybe Pirates will be getting something similar and those will also need to be set up just like the trade federation.