You have what's being called a quantum drive which your ship uses for interplanetary travel. In interviews they've discussed it being about 0.2 the speed of light, although that's a rough estimate and will likely vary with some ships being faster or slower than others.
While travelling in a straight line between two points with the quantum drive, you will periodically be pulled out based around a number of factors on account of navigational hazards. Things such as what system you're in, whether you're passing close to an NPC\player, and so forth.
These random navigational encounters will need to be negotiated so that you can continue on your way. They may include things like a pirate attack (player or npc), some stray asteroids or a derelict ship and so on. You can choose to fly on by (or make a run for it as the case may be), or stop and handle the encounter another way if you prefer.
These encounters are generally not persistent events. They remain while a player is involved with one and for some time after, but will eventually expire some time after they have left. The duration varying on their nature. I'd imagine an asteroid claim would persist long enough for a claim to be sold and used. A pirate might stick around until it was killed\chased off, etc..
Jump points spit you out in a general area that's envisioned as being too large to camp even with a fleet of ships. They could try and hope to get lucky I suppose, some people win the lottery right?
__
While the fine mechanics aren't worked out yet, being captured might just give players the option to respawn elsewhere and an NPC be kept in lockup. If they killed you or the NPC neither one of you will revive again at the same spot anyway.
Yeah, but search and rescue ships can probably still find them even if they can't send out a signal for help as pioneers can find the anomalous readings of a ship and come check it out.