Feature Request: Let me defend myself

[Kurgan224]

It would be just awesome if when someone attacks me, I could defend myself without the faction who's space I'm in coming down on me like a brick. Self-defense should not get you in trouble.

[BitByte]

If you attack against faction or their allies assets for sure you should get punished from that.
If attacker is pirate make sure you scan them first to get real identity visible which makes sure sector owner faction won't get angry. And shooting civilians is not good either.

[Kurgan224]

Kind of missing the point - if someone attacks _me_ and I shoot back, why should I get in trouble for defending myself?

[GCU Grey Area]

if someone attacks _me_ and I shoot back, why should I get in trouble for defending myself?

Because the assumption is that they have a good reason for attacking you, e.g. a police ship belonging to a faction which considers you to be a criminal.

[Phezzan]

OP is right.

The only ships with authorization to start a fight are licensed police:
Licensed police transmit scan results to sector security showing contraband
Even a licensed player's scans are reported, because military ships will show up and kill neutral SCA Behemoths after just scanning them.

If sector authorities could be confused by unregistered 'police' who skip reporting scan results, then the police license does nothing and pirates plundering plasma cells are indistinguishable from police scanning for spaceweed

[Nanook]

if someone attacks _me_ and I shoot back, why should I get in trouble for defending myself?

Because the assumption is that they have a good reason for attacking you, e.g. a police ship belonging to a faction which considers you to be a criminal.

Wrong. Only police of the local faction should be able to start a fight. Whoever initiates hostilities should be in the wrong. Just because two factions are at war, and I Include the player in this, shouldn't mean they can start fighting in some neutral factions' sectors. If that's allowed in the game, then the player should be able to defend themselves. It's called common sense and fairness.

[GCU Grey Area]

Wrong. Only police of the local faction should be able to start a fight. Whoever initiates hostilities should be in the wrong. Just because two factions are at war, and I Include the player in this, shouldn't mean they can start fighting in some neutral factions' sectors. If that's allowed in the game, then the player should be able to defend themselves. It's called common sense and fairness.

Wrong? It's not exactly without precedent for real world governments to send police or military forces to deal with criminals who have committed atrocities, then fled to a foreign country. As for X4 rather wish the factions would be a bit more active in that regard. Almost always have -30 rep with at least one of the factions, frequently several of them. Have done some downright evil things in some of my games, e.g. during one of my Split games, first I helped the Xenon to take over Hatikvah's, then systematically purged every single Argon station from Silent Witness, Guiding Star & 11th Hour, murdering thousands of Argons in the process. Reckon that sort of thing should result in free roaming death squads to hunt me down, no matter which sectors I try to hide in.

[jlehtone]

It would be just awesome if when someone attacks me, I could defend myself without the faction who's space I'm in coming down on me like a brick. Self-defense should not get you in trouble.

Vigilantism. X attacks you in Y's sector. If that is a crime according to Y, then the authorities (Y's cops) should deal with it, not you. Naturally, the cops in X4 are not the most effective, so you might be dead before X is dealt with (if ever). If X attacking you is not a crime in Y-space, then you attacking X is most likely a crime and Y's cops should deal with you, even though you claim it "self-defense".

In Spring 2022 Russia did start a "special operation" and did claim self-defense as casus belli. Everyone does not agree on that assessment. If "self-defense" would grant immunity, then players would use it.


I have slaughtered a very large number of Terrans in X4. I don't claim self-defense. No, my reasons were much more "noble"; I did selflessly protect a weaker faction from Terrans. (Xenon) Regardless, the Terrans now consider me "a very good friend of Sol". The point is that (re)gaining reputation is rather easy in this game. It is easy to become a target, but it is also easy to become the Hero of xxx. It is also "ok" to kill -- even "criminal" civilians. You can even commit genocide and not be hunted.

Does any of that make sense? Not by our real life standards.

[GCU Grey Area]

The point is that (re)gaining reputation is rather easy in this game.

No kidding. At one point during the aforementioned purging of Silent Witness I lost a HUGE chunk of negative rep (think it was something on the order of -30 -> -23) when MY Rattlesnake defended ITSELF from an utterly inconsequential group of Xenon fighters within sight of the station I was in the process of demolishing. Even got a congratulatory message from the station, though it was quite hard to make out amidst the sound of exploding station modules.

[vvvvvvvv]

It is also "ok" to kill -- even "criminal" civilians. You can even commit genocide and not be hunted.

Does any of that make sense? Not by our real life standards.

Terrans letting their hero murder some people and probably even covering up evidence afterwards is the way it could go in real life standards. And if some evidence leaks, they can always claim "this is Xenon propaganda spread by AI-sympathizers". Terrans specifically clearly operate on principle "the end justifies the means", meaning they'll keep anyone around as long as that person is useful.

The issue here is reputation system is out of whack, but the situation you describe would not be surprising in a real world at all. In real life it is entirely possible to get away with a crime of any level, especially with a powerful backer. Which is probably one of the reasons why people play video games.

[Scoob]

The current system is out of whack. I can be minding my own business flying through a sector belonging to an ally of mine. Another ship, from a faction that hates me can attack me with impunity if the faction controlling that sector also likes, or is at least tolerant, of them. What SHOULD happen is that the aggressor then gets treated as the CRIMINAL they are. If the controlling faction is on good terms with both factions, the aggressor should ALWAYS be the one that's punished. Not the victim just defending themselves. Currently in such situations ONLY the player is punished. This is wrong.

The system needs more nuance. Only the ship committing a crime should be punished. The AI should ensure that enemies of the player when flying through another factions space that LIKES the player, not attack them. That's the first step. If they take their chance to commit a CRIME in that Factions space, than that offending ship should be "marked hostile" as far as the controlling faction is concerned.

The current behaviour is a POINTLESS behaviour. If I falsely get blamed when attacked, losing rep AND getting hunted by location security forces, then I'm going to reload. Sadly, that's often just what happens. A player asset is attacked unprovoked, player asset shoots back, player gets blamed, local previously friendly security ships go agro, player assets quite rightly defends against those. Player rep with that faction falls. Reload. None of it ever happened. It's just a waste of time.

[rudi_pioneer]

There’s one case where I’d love for above to be possible: end of VIG quest sometimes doesn’t correctly clear the attack state for all ships (or few ships get it again?) and this is in low attention. So, defending against those few turns entire sector against me and drops VIG rep…

[Socratatus]

I noticed the Op did not explain the circumstances of his situation which is suspicious.

In the real world, a person can cleverly trigger someone else to attack him then feign he did nothing wrong. What was the situation the OP was in that triggered this attack of which we have no more info about?