I also agree with the "quick check" idea: when I target someone, I want to be able to see how killing him will affect me, with the glance of an eye. When someone attacks me I do NOT have the time to call up the character info, scroll to the relevant stats, consider what area I'm in, do the math and then either fight or run. When someone shoots me, I'm too worried doing evasive maneuvers to go through all of that; I just want to press "select nearest target" which will probably be him, and just read how killing him will affect me, right below where his name is.

Then again, I also think that I should not get any penalty, or at least a very reduced one for defending myself against an attacker. After all, when someone attacks me and I kill him in the process of defending my life, what the hell am I to blame for?

Well % ratings were good. I like them, althought they might be a little bit confusing.. so i suggest a little better system (i think :>)

Now we have 6 (7?) degree scale: ?, Love, like, neutral, dislike, hate and KOS. Since KOS is 0% hate it isn't really a degree..

What i suggest is to put a corp name, a status (one of above) and a percentage of overall (where 50% neutral is base 0).

Im itani so:
Itani nation: Love (90%)
NT: Like (40%)
Sercos: KOS (-100%)

now.. let me explain. it looks like this:
100% - ?
99% 60% - love
60% 20% - like
20% -20% - neutral
-20% -60% - dislike
-60% -99% - hate
-100% - KOS

Yes, many people have thought of this and suggested it, myself included. I will lobby for a system similar to this for the next client update.

please be consistent, if you want to use a scale that goes from -100 to 100, _do not call it %_

I don't see why they're needed when you're already being told in the chat area whether certain actions are good or bad towards a faction. Most of the time it's a no brainer as to what the consequences will be. That's why I feel that all you need is the word. If people want a more descriptive progression, maybe emoticons can be used with the happy face slowly turning into a sad face... and eventually a skull at KOS level.

:->
:-)
:-]
:-|
:-/
:-[
:-(
:-E

(taken from [syn]n00b's emoticon list)

Well.. treat it as good % and bad % :)

No, thats the thing to avoid. Changing a meter and its value is not helping and definitely not good interface.

Well, I personally like to see what progress I am making when I do something, and without the % (or other meter) ratings it is hard to tell just how disliked or loved I am (e.g. if I know I'm 99% disliked I know a single trade mission puts me into neutral, 50% disliked needs much more work).

However, what I would also really like to know is the ratings of the other pilots. E.g. somebody (esp. NT) opens fire on me in 9. Right now, all I can do is run away because the chances are he is loved there and killing him would destroy my rep. However, if I could quickly check his rep (and maybe have to pay for it?), I would be much better able to tell if I need to run or if I can afford to fight back.

simple way to do it.

if you have a 500 point scale in place, and obviously you do, just give each faction the neumerical rating from 1 to 500, 1 being worst, 500 being best, and then add the text to the side to show love,like, neut, dislike, hate etc.

since at 50%love you get an extra trademission choice from that faction, it's nice to know where in the level you are.

I believe we should use a -500 - 0 - +500 scale. -500 is KOS, 0 is Neutral, and +500 is Unconditional love.

How's about:

0.0 = KOS
5.0 = Neutral
10.0 = Unconditional love

Unconditional Love?

That might not be the word to use since it can decrease, I'd say use something like "Pillar Of Society".

500-Pillar of Society
400-499-Love
300-399-Like
200-299-Fine
100-199-Tolerate
-99-0-99 Neutral
-100-199- Annoyed
-200-299- Pissed Off
-300-399- Dislike
-400-499- Hate
-500 -LOATH ENTIRELY

I like a system with numbers because you know how much you are actually gaining; "your score dropped noticeably" doesn't really say a lot to me.

If its a matter of altering the scale, or just spacing out the outliers, the going from bad->netural->good shouldn't be linear.

Graphicly, the effort required should be the area under the curve of a parabola. (Its been a while since I was in a math class :P)

Or numericly (Im only using these lables because its easy to cut and paste... I realy dont care):

770-Pillar of Society
440-769-Love
180-439-Like
60-179-Fine
20-59-Tolerate
-19-0-19 Neutral
-19-60- Annoyed
-60-179- Pissed Off
-180-439- Dislike
-440-769- Hate
-770 -LOATH ENTIRELY

err, parabolas are depressions indicating that most people would be Liked or hated and few would be neutral

I think you want a Bell Curve

'e has a point...

Well.. it would be to easy :) So.. i suggest:

1. You can check rating of ANY player (loged or not) in some particular stations (s1, s2, s3, s18, s17 and such) by some special mission, but you must pay for that information (about 10.000 per player should be fair)

2. You can buy some expensive widget (about 10.000) that will connect to some govement network (more like HACK into) and retrive informations about targeted by you using his radio or network fingerprint (so that govement won't noticed that - you must be in the same sector thought), but it takes time.. 20s for instance.. after that time you have all info about that guy, but only most imporatnt shows up, like standing with current and nearest sectors and such..

Why should it be so difficult to do? If I have found myself an informer (that could be a mission) and if I am paying him (that could be a per question cost), I should be able to contact him in the same way I can contact any ohter NPC in the sector.

So I'd say the check should only require a message to an NPC (or maybe mission computer). It may be expensive to retrieve that info, and it should be somewhat difficult to gain access, but it should also be accessible easily if needed (e.g. through a message you can bind to a key if you want to), otherwise it will be pointless.

Why the hell does it have to be difficult or expensive at all? We can get this information for free right now by using /charinfo or whatever key we bound this to. We HAVE the information, it just takes too much time analyzing it. Why the hell can't the ships computer analyze it for us and display it in a user friendly manner?

Again, I like to stress this point: why pay for a more user friendly representation of information you already have? What the hell do we have an onboard computer for? For playing chess on those long trade missions?

charinfo doesn't show you target's standing.. it only shows you it's kills and licenses (wchich is to much to me... licenses are my buisness and I might don't want other players to know them)