I ran into a somewhat questionable, and what I thought to be an unfair, situation yesterday with someone who had a high faction standing for Orion Heavy Manufacturing. So I figured I'd explain the situation, ask some questions, and leave it to your interpretation to see whether these were the intended features of the game. Because right now I'm feeling a little confused regarding how the faction system works and whether I ran into any bugs/exploits...

What I was doing was making a few deliveries out to Xang Xi in Grey Space with my Centaur. I chose the mission in an Orion station in Dau D-9. When I got back to the Dau station, having just completed the mission and being completely empty, I ran into a Valkyrie whose character had someone what of a high reputation with Orion. He was UIT just like me, so I didn't think much of it, but little did I know that his UIT standing was KOS. So he was probably a pirate.

As soon as I got near the station he opened up on me with his Valk. So naturally I bolted for the docks and whipped out an EC-88. At this point I thought it would be dumb to fire at him from so close to the station. So I just hung around the docks and waited for minutes to see if he'd go away. Nope. So I figured that as long as I'd hang around the station I'd be safe. WRONG!!

What I did was squeeze my EC-88 through the cracks of the station to hide a little bit from him. He made his way in also. But this time he fired and destroyed my free ship (OH NO!! Hehehe...). The thing that really got me though was how he got away with firing SO CLOSE to the station without having Strike Force bots chase him away. He practically fired directly AT the station as he was chasing me from the beginning, and he got away with killing me literally INSIDE the station without being chased.

Now I know there are benefits to getting a high faction rating. But last I checked you get yelled at for firing so close to a station. It's the so-called "no-fire zone" that is enforced regardless of your standing with the faction. For example, I'm admired by UIT and I STILL get yelled at when I fire too close to a station. How is it that this guy got away with it within plain view of Strike Force bots? Not a single Strike Force chased or attacked him for this.

Also, does the faction system have any concept of self defense? Basically in this case, Orion has allowed for my death to occur despite my offering services to them as a trader. I was not hated by them. I was actually borderlining between respect and admiration. When I fired back, AFTER I was damaged by him, I got a warning stating that he was protected. Last I checked Orion was not a pirate faction. Why then does it protect pirates?

So I don't know how much the faction system has changed since the beta, if at all. I just thought I'd bring this up to sort of question whether this was intended or whether something was really buggy. Otherwise it sure would be nice to be able to defend yourself without worrying about any penalty. I can understand why there is protection involved, but that should be something conditional where the protected person doesn't fire or damage you first. It shouldn't be an unconditional thing.

Ah... so it's still like this, huh? Same thing happened to me too, Arolte. It's a bug, I think.

I was sitting just outside of the dock in Latos N-15 (or whatever the TPG station in Latos is) and Borommakot decided to kill me. I was trying to get a bind to work, so I wasn't paying close attention, and besides, I figure that if someone wants to kill me outside of a station like that, they deserve any faction standing hit that they get. Being homed at the station, I didn't go anywhere, but Borommakot just kept coming back to get his free kills, and like an idiot, I kept waiting for him to become KOS and have strike forces sent out at him. After letting him kill me 5 or 6 times, it dawned on me that he wasn't taking standing hits, so I asked on 100, and he laughed at me.

I'm friggin' admired with TPG and this guy just is sailing in and killing me - and I assume, then just keeps boosting out of the sector to avoid any strike force or whatever. So after that point, I'd let him shoot me once, and then I'd start to dodge so that the strike force (which launches really slowly, by the way) would get him, and he eventually gave up. But it's not the ships that I lost that day that bugs me, nor the money I lost, but the fact that to my knowledge, (and I'd ask every time I saw him - which come to think about it, I haven't seen him around in a while) his TPG standing is still as high as it was before he started station killing me.

Which reminds me, silentsuicide tells me that killing within the NFZ doesn't result in any faction hits, but killing outside the NFZ does. That doesn't make too much sense to me...

There is currently no permanent penalty on faction standing for killing people in NFZ. This has been posted quite a few times. If it's a bug, it is a rather long-lasting one... This has been so since the "kill NPCs in NFZ to be admired" exploit was fixed.

Arolte: if the guy was not chased after he hit you, that is another issue. Are you sure the strike force did not come out of the station? If they did not, it is a bug. But sometimes the SF just does not come out even for KOS people and you don't know why.

Sun Tzu, I'm positive the Strike Force bots didn't chase him. I was literally parked inside the station when he killed me. I'm also pretty sure he fired at me in the NFZ when I finally reached the dock, upon entering the sector. He just sat there in front of the docks staring at me, while two Strike Force bots were sort of sitting around in the distant asteroids. He never left the sector to clear what I'd assume was a temporary KOS status either. But I guess he either never reached it somehow or the bots were just being dumb.

Now, when he fired at you did he actually make hits? Even if he fires around the station, and nearly hits you, until he actually makes a shot connect the SF could care less.

Basicly the system works like this, if you are inside the NFZ and you make shots hit you will have SF chase after you, and if you kill inside the NFZ there is no faction drop. If you are outside the NFZ only then will you get a faction hit if you kill the player, but the SF could care less about what you are doing.

Giving a second thought to Arolte's story, I wonder if the cracks of the station (0m) are in the NFZ...

You can shoot all you want, you can shoot the station. only if you damage a player in the nfz will the sf come after you (including ramming damage?). There are no provisions for self defence, if he shoots you, and you shoot him back, a sf will come for each of you. I have commonly shot at and around players to get them to shoot me.

I think there should be a standing hit for killing non-KOS players in the nfz, and I think the nfz should not apply to killing KOS players (temporary or otherwise).

Stations are not a very safe place to be. I have loaded a hornet with neuts and blasted a rag in 1.225 second flat, and then escaped. I bet I could seige a station if I put my mind to it. With the proper loadout I can kill a moth in 2.2 seconds (+/- 0.1 seconds). I'm actually suprised this isn't a more common problem.

there are people that do it. And I did raise my voice about it. But like always they are just having fun and RP-ing... which in my book is just acting like an ass but ooh well. The only way i found to not get annoyed by that behaviour is just stopping with playing. Well not stopping but taking a break. Which is one of the reasons you haven't seen me on much lately.

But all i hear then when I say something liek that is: hehe but its fun or blah you carebear...

Don't give up easy, Renegade. If it's any consolation I've only taken small, incremental faction hits with each kill I got against someone who was protected. Granted it's still a faction standing loss, but it's nowhere near as severe as I thought it would be. So the way I see it, both sides are broken and are in need of some serious fixing. Traveling in convoys is a big plus also. More often than not you'll have at least one person in the convoy with a higher standing, who can use that to his advantage to drive that jerkface off the sector. Halleluja!

Well my point and view is:

if there is nobody for them to shoot they will grow bored and exit vendetta. Problem solved. The only way to stop people from doing so is avoiding them in making them have fun. They have fun fighing, so I have to make sure that I dont offer them a fight or even a chase. And the best way is just not logging in.

Well it hasn't seemed to work, Renegade. There's still a lot of them running rampant with tons of targets to choose from. But I'm not going to mention any names here, because my goal here isn't to insult anyone and get into any petty arguments. I will tell you that a lot of them still exist, even in the wee morning hours where very few players are on.

me giggles

Please, tell us your thoughts on this subject, Upn.

also here: http://vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/1/10758

I was just killed about 200m from a station in Geira Rutilus. I am Pillar of Society with Serco, and the person who killed me claims he lost nothing upon killing me.

If that's not fucked up, I don't know what is. Killing a POS player shouldn't just be a slap on the wrist--you're killing a player that a faction deems to be one of the most important people in their society, someone they would willingly send out strike forces to defend--the punishment should be as close to societal death as possible.

Forcing that player into Hate or near-KOS standing would not be too much at all--if you were to kill a country's leader, do you think you'd just be sent to jail for a few months? No. You'd be either given a life sentence or the death penalty depending on where you were when you committed the crime. At best, you would be permanently exiled, which is what setting a player to KOS effectively does.

If there is ANY bug that needs to be worked on right now, it is the problems with the NFZ and SF.

yea. Well I'm told that since it's not an actual bug and more like a "loophole" created when trying to fix a different issue, guides can't do much about fixing player standings to reflect station killing Admired and POS players in the NFZ.

But yes. Please. Fix the NFZ and the SF so they do what they're intended to do. It's getting annoying how blatantly people are violating it now because they know about the lack of punishment. And I think that it should be an "undocumented" change so that when someone station kills thinking that they'll be safe, they can be surprised when they're never allowed back in the sector without strikeforces attacking them.

This issue badly needs fixing because people are shamelessly exploiting it, as could be seen during the TGFT's mining event yesterday. Even if this game is combat oriented, I don't think it should be another space quake...

Renegade says:
Well my point and view is:

if there is nobody for them to shoot they will grow bored and exit vendetta. Problem solved.

Isnt that just a clever form of the same thing you claim we do?

If the NFZ's are broken, use it to your advantage too. Sitting still in a bus outside any station after being chased regardless of where it is, is just asking to be popped. Its not too hard to keep yourself out of those situations, exit station, turbo, done.

I agreee things need to be fixed. Itani should not be able to get liked by serco except in very special circumstances and vice versa. SF's shouldnt care who you kill out a station if you are over +900 with them unless you kill another admired player. There should be no SF sent at you for returning fire upon an attacker.

No tramshed it is not the same. Since I expect to be protected in that place. Its the same as getting mugged on the street while the cops are like patrolling 100m further on. You yell Help and all they do is quitly ignoring you and going on with what they are doing.

So my view is, if I don't show myself on the street, they can't mug me.

Not to mention that using broken stuff to your advantage is by definaition an exploit. And as I remember in most EULA's taking these steps are prohibited and even grounds to get banned or at least your account completely suspended. Naturally if you only stumble on this and hten do it once and report and never do it again then you are not exploiting.

But by contineously taking advantage of it...

You are protected in the no-fire zone, Rene, like everyone else. The strike force gets out of the station to destroy the pilot who violated it. The protection based on standing is poorer. One trade mission is enough to repair the hit on standing.

I did not do enough tests to be sure that this is automatic, but it seems that the strike force does not appear if you get hit too close from the station walls (0m); the station guards become hostile but that's all.