This is in regards to 0.5 security space and above:
If someone has a ‘Suspect Flag’ on them, I may attack without repercussions to me by Concord, and without me taking any hit to Security Status, correct?
If someone ‘assists’ me after I attack someone with a ‘Suspect Flag’, for example with a Shield/Armor repairer, they will get a ‘Suspect Flag’, and anyone else can attack them now, correct? Or would they only be part of the ‘Limited Engagement’ between me and the ‘Suspect’ I attacked, so only the ‘Suspect’ would be able to attack them without repercussions from Concord?
If I am in a fleet and someone uses a ‘Command Burst’ and I am within range, whilst having engaged a ‘Suspect’, would the one using the ‘Command Burst’ gain a ‘Suspect Flag’? Would the entire fleet gain ‘Suspect Flags’, or only the one using the Command Burst?
In general, if you shield/armor/hull repair another player, you inherit their flags. However, as I understand it, if you rep someone who is in a limited engagement with another party you are not part of, you go suspect. If however the repper shoots the target first to acquire their own limited engagment timer, they are free to rep their ally (who has the same flag) without going suspect.
Also, if the ally you are repping is in a war, regardless of if he is fighting a legal war target or a criminal, you will go suspect if you rep them.
As you can see highsec aggression mechanics are nuanced and not always straightforward.
Command Bursts do not interact with CrimeWatch in a any way. You can boost fleetmates with no flags being transferred or gained (other than the standard weapons timer). You will never gain a suspect or limited engagement timer for using them.
Some time ago I also wondered how does Crimewatch interact with command bursts, since I haven’t seen it documented and seems strange that they don’t, and found this:
Q: How will Command Bursts interact with crimewatch?
A: This is not completely set in stone, and the answer will depend heavily on some performance testing that will happen in the future. The “default” would be no interaction with crimewatch timers (no suspect timers for any command burst activity). We understand that some of you will be disappointed if we end up going with the default, but remember that all of our options here are still significant improvements on the status quo for highsec combat.
The way I interpret this is command bursts should interact with Crimewatch and might do some day, but for now don’t for performance reasons only.
Oh, I read it the same. From a game design point of view they absolutely should work as repping and transfer flags. You should not be able to influence a fight while safe behind the skirt of CONCORD.
Whether this is for legitimate performance reasons, or just “lazy” development where CCP decided it wasn’t worth the effort, I can’t say - maybe a bit of both. But now that the feature is shipped we won’t see boosts interacting with CrimeWatch until there is another major rework of the system, which could be years away if ever.
I won’t go that far. Neutral logistics, while deceitful, do go suspect, arguably a more dangerous state to be in than if the logi were in the same corp. I agree, wars would be better off if logi had to be in corp only, but I don’t think it would change much in the end.
The command bursts should be treated as reppers and propagate flags. At least they are on-grid now though which is a marked improvement to the shenanigans that went on just a few years ago with off-grid boosters influencing fights near-invisibly.
But I see the problem - if you make propagating flags too easy people will use that as a way to gank things without a CONCORD response. So now you need exceptions where some command bursts may not apply to some and depend on your safety setting and the whole thing becomes even more complicated, something the highsec aggression rules already have a problem with as evidenced by this thread.
The simple solution would just be to outlaw them, like AoE weapons are in highsec. But that isn’t going to happen now, so meh, I think we are stuck with them as is.
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