Makes me want to sign up again...

One thing to consider is this: how do you generate a sector list in real life? Aircraft do it with transponders, which reply to a ping from an active transmitter.

Why not do the same in VO? A VO ship transponder would tell everyone else who you are, who you're affiliated to, and if you're hostile and would probably increase the range at which you're visible on radar.

Turn off the transponder and you are invisible in a cluttered environment, but if you are seen the other ship won't know anything about you so would be forced to flag you as a hostile until further notice. That gives you provision for more role-play and makes life in VO much more uncertain and much more dangerous.

So, if your transponder is on then you're officially not trying to hide but you can be seen very easily. If your transponder is off then a station NPC may get upset even to the point of launching a strike force (excepting Corvus stations, who are cool all the damn time), and a passing player might think you're hostile too.

Opens possibilities, doesn't it (at the expense of being a pain to code)?

I like the transponder idea. It may have been discussed before sometime in the last decade, but it has merit. You should repost your idea in the suggestions forum.

lock. now.