People don't naturally cooperate with strangers in a video-game. DayZ is a testament to this. There has to be some form of adversity that forces them to do it (i.e. blood bags).
If the game merely implements punishment for KoS behavior then at worst it is seen as a status item to be pursued, at best people simply ignore each other and you get a classic PvE mmo.
Adversity, such as players/NPCs trying to kill you? Grouping up makes you harder to kill, and makes it easier for you to kill others. This is different from DayZ, where zombies are never a threat, and numbers don't matter in firefights because of the way the game works. There are also no multicrew ships in DayZ. But you asked about what's in place to stop people from just KoSing, that's different from "what benefits are there to grouping up." There'll be plenty, from the medical system to multicrew where there'll be roles like dedicated EWAR personnel.
Really, I don't see how it's even a question. People who play with friends will be able to have fighter escorts for their trade runs, people onboard to repel boarders, to sit in turrets, handle the power management, EWAR, etc. And likewise if you're attacking, you'll have pilots, fighters covering your troop transport, and then of course the Space Marines themselves to do boarding/going into stations. A lone guy won't be able to do much of anything against coordinated teamwork like that, which is why it encourages teaming up.
Also, what kind of performance are you getting in 2.0? It's really rubbish for me, 30FPS if I'm lucky and the motion blur plus wobbliness on foot makes it horrible.
FPS is currently crap because of server-side stuff, 30-50 is par for the course for 2.0. Should be better in hangar and Arena Commander. I get 31-50 FPS in 2.1 usually.
