Request to prevent rep loss from stray shots

[Falcrack]

This is IMO a major issue which causes a huge amount of frustration. You may have a fleet engaged in a big battle between two sides, where you are allied with one of the sides. Somewhere, somehow one of your owned ships accidentally fires upon another friendly ship or station. Or a friendly ship or station has a stray shot hit one of you own ships. Pretty soon, things escalate without your knowledge, and all of a sudden you are surrounded by red ships that used to be friendly. INCREDIBLY ANNOYING.

Is there not some way this rep loss from unintentional friendly fire could be prevented? What about implementing a few rules regarding stray shots:

1. When an NPC fires shots at a target, the game keeps track of the intended target of each shot. If the shot hits the intended target, then rep loss happens. But if the shot happens to hit a ship or station that IS NOT the intended target, there is no associated rep loss. Everyone is cool, there is no escalation of hostilities.
2. Same rules applies for turrets fired from an NPC piloted or player piloted ship, since they are not manually controlled by the player.
3. The only time there is a rep loss for stray shots would be the main guns or missiles fired from a player owned ship, because a player could theoretically be firing on a ship without having targeted the enemy first.
4. Even if your main guns from a player piloted ship do happen to hit another ship or station, the AI should be more ready and willing to overlook it and accept an apology, as long as you have a high rep with them.

Seriously, this would make fleet battles so much more fun if we didn't have to worry about this stray shot ruining reputation nonsense.

[CBJ]

We already do pretty much all of that. However, in order to avoid exploits that would allow a player to trivially destroy as many friendly ships as they like without any consequences, the reputation loss for "accidental" hits is greatly reduced rather than being eliminated completely.

[Falcrack]

We already do pretty much all of that. However, in order to avoid exploits that would allow a player to trivially destroy as many friendly ships as they like without any consequences, the reputation loss for "accidental" hits is greatly reduced rather than being eliminated completely.

I'd rather the rep los was eliminated entirely for accidental shots, at least for shots fired from NPC piloted ships and stations. How is the player going to easily exploit that I wonder?

[andrew051974]

We already do pretty much all of that. However, in order to avoid exploits that would allow a player to trivially destroy as many friendly ships as they like without any consequences, the reputation loss for "accidental" hits is greatly reduced rather than being eliminated completely.

Reputation... That is not main problem of frendly fire. The problem is the station|ship goes red, then reports about attack, then some defending forces launch to intercept your ships. At least there should be option to communicate with captain/manager and apologize.

It could be done the same way like you press 'F' when your ships do report about something. And if you missed that option then additionally allow you to call to hostile NPC with RMB. Also there should be a limit of apologizes you could give to same "object" in a row depending on faction reputation.

So, when your guns (turrets) aim at target that hostile to NPC ship|station it should be always frendly fire (no limit for apologizes). But if you do command (drive) your ship to fly in location where NPC will be in the line of fire then limitation of apologizes should be counted.

[Max Bain]

We already do pretty much all of that. However, in order to avoid exploits that would allow a player to trivially destroy as many friendly ships as they like without any consequences, the reputation loss for "accidental" hits is greatly reduced rather than being eliminated completely.

I'd rather the rep los was eliminated entirely for accidental shots, at least for shots fired from NPC piloted ships and stations. How is the player going to easily exploit that I wonder?

This. I dont understand why the player will be punished for the "not so good AI" shooting at allies. I even think that all turrets shouldnt have a rep loss. Only player controlled weapons should count in my opinion (and many others).

Reputation... That is not main problem of frendly fire. The problem is the station|ship goes red, then reports about attack, then some defending forces launch to intercept your ships. At least there should be option to communicate with captain/manager and apologize.

The station ships go red because of the reputation loss. There are two losses... the one is temporary and the other one is permamnent. But both will make your friends red (the permanent loss just takes longer).