I also have a co-worker who plays this. It's a pretty unforgiving game from what I hear. If you get attacked by pirates they can steal your ship and your loot. Kind of like the way Ultima Online used to be. Anything on you is theirs.

This would be equivalent to getting ganked in WoW and having the ganker be able to loot all your bags, armor and weapons.

Still I hear it's a good game if you like sci-fi space combat and empire building.