Yeah, I' tickle em to about 5%, so that if they a) jump to empty or b) goto a none UiT station, I can finish em off, and not lose my precious UiT standing :P Thats called a tactict, it's not abuse of any system.

It's exploitation of a loophole in the system since I doubt the intent was to allow criminals to harbor in nation space while they murder, extort, and thieve just on the other side of the border especially when the attack is initiated in nation space itself and just happens to be consummated post-jump. It may be a tactic but it's an ugly one and even uglier when done in a group.

In nation space, who damages whom should be tracked and accomplices penalized some fraction of standing (maybe determined by the amount of damage inflicted) no matter who gets credit for the kill within nation-space itself and one sector beyond (or within monitoring range of the turrets just outside of nation-space). Under this scheme, even if you are the sole attacker you will still be penalized for killing someone (perhaps even near to the full penalty) no matter where that death occurs. If you do 95% of your damage in nation-space, you take 95% of the standing hit when the person you damaged dies. Damage tracking can be reset after docking or perhaps after a set amount of time/number of jumps. Forgiveness operates as usual to handle cases of friendly fire.

The point is there will always be a loophole...

... which doesn't mean you don't fix the ones you find.

Indeed Daare.

The newbies don't know that jumping isn't their best option, and I can't think of a good way to put this in a tutorial.

I still feel like rendering any aggressor Neutral for a short (length based on a person's levels, and depending on the amount of damage done) period of time is a win-win situation.

I'll tell you what I think Aticephyr, life as a rat is already hard enough, for instance, today, I killed a guy as he warped *into* UiT space. He then came back moments later and gave me some money I didn't ask for, but it was a reasonable amount, so I decided not to shoot him, and sat still about 1000m from the wh, and watched him sail past.

He then opened fire with a barrage of newb missiles that I could prolly have just sat still and dodged, but I decided to fire upon him instead for insulting me (taking a few hits first in the process, them beeps make me loco!), who is the aggressor in the second scenario? The newb? Or me? How does that game work that out? Post some AI code, and the devs may grant you your wish.

P.S He may have been newbish, but his levels were comparable to my own, only he had lower combat, and higher trade.

You killed him as he was warping, say, from Latos into Azek? So both of you were on the Latos side when the assaults took place? My suggestion in no way deals with this, since both assaults were in grey. Grey is grey, and I have no intention of changing that.

If I've misunderstood you, please correct me.

Ah sorry, I attacked him in Edras B-11, then *he* attacked me in the UiT side, but my faction is such (-598 UiT) that had he killed me, he would not have taken a loss.

At that point, he shot a Disliked person in UIT space. There should be no penalty for that. You following him into UIT space, in my opinion, was a mistake on your part. Mistake is too harsh a word; what I mean is, you should not expect any protection in UIT space if they do not like you. If you were neutral (that's up for debate) or admire+, then he would be considered the aggressor. Nations care about what happen in nation space, and that's it.

If I'm not making any sense (or my reasoning seems farfetched), please do tell me and I'll try to elaborate/clarify further.

No, you are making sense, but I feel there are too many loop holes in this system, because, think of players like Inco who keep their faction high.

I am probably a really bad example of a pirate who kills things in nation space, because I do not personally care what x nation thinks of me if I have a target in sight, its after that I personally think about it ;)

Inco would receive temp-neutral under my system, since he would be an aggressor initiating damage in nation-space. Though if you're bounty system were put into place, that would round out the system nicely enough for me.

edit: my ideas were spurred by Inco's ratting in Jallik/Edras. I am keeping him in mind :).