Well that's a pretty easy one. Essentially the owner / captain of the ship settings or ratings would be the determining factor of the encounters that ship would come across when flying around in space. So if you don't really want to be fighting other players, you better not be getting on a ship where someone just likes to fight other players! But ummm, you know, that's kind of I would say a pretty obvious answer to that. Hopefully that's one that you like!