When you die, you see a death panel message: you may wait for another character to revive you (for example First Aid abilities) or respawn to go to your registered medical center (respawn point). Respawning:
Your respawn point is stored on your character when you register at a medical facility (dialog sets your respawn area and coordinates). New characters without a saved point get a default server waypoint on first entry. Player cities can build Medical Centers; those upgrades reduce XP debt from death by 5% per Medical Center level (see Player cities).
On respawn, debt added is based on your total SP acquired and a tiered multiplier, before reductions:
Base debt = TotalSPAcquired × multiplier. Reductions apply to that amount (not below zero):
Debt is clamped to a large server maximum. You are messaged how much debt was added and your new total.
Whenever you would earn skill XP, the game pays debt first: XP goes to debt until it is cleared, then the remainder applies to skills. You can see current debt on the Skills window. Vitality and other bonuses described on Character creation also influence how punishing debt feels over time.
If you are defeated by another player who has subdual mode enabled, you are not fully killed in the normal sense: you receive a subdued message, are resurrected with knockdown and temporary penalties instead of the death panel, and nearby players get a notice. This path does not use the standard respawn/debt flow above.
Ship destruction and death in space follow the Piloting Guide (hull loss, recovery at starport, module drops). That is separate from ground respawn/medical registration.