How things work now:
Players become outlaws and freely engageable when their security status drops to -5 or less.
FacPo will proactively engage any player with a low sec status and their thresholds are determined by the security level of the system that player is in.
- Security status of -2.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 1.0 systems.
- Security status of -2.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.9 systems.
- Security status of -3.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.8 systems.
- Security status of -3.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.7 systems.
- Security status of -4.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.6 systems.
- Security status of -4.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.5 systems.
I suggest lowering these thresholds to something like:
- Security status of -6.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 1.0 systems.
- Security status of -6.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.9 systems.
- Security status of -7.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.8 systems.
- Security status of -7.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.7 systems.
- Security status of -8.0 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.6 systems.
- Security status of -8.5 or below means you’ll be attacked in 0.5 systems.
Why I think this is would be a good idea:
Primarily the reason for the suggestion is to shift responsibility for policing outlaws further into players hands, either for good or for ill. With the present system, a player will be harassed by FacPo in all of highsec before they become a free for all target and I would like to reverse this order. I would also like there to be some possible benefit to having security status less than -5 but still higher than -10 while also preserving the status quo for players who are -10 and who like their gameplay the way it is.
I do not really care about the exact values, personally. The threshold at which one becomes an outlaw could alternatively be raised, though this would throw out the window any benefits of sec status between -5 and -10 that come with the main proposal. It could also be a combination of the two, adjusting FacPo and Outlaw thresholds in concert to achieve a smoother gradient, as long as players would be the first authorities with the opportunity to seek justice as sec status drops.
Would people care enough to keep their sec status up and FacPo off their case? That I don’t know, but if they don’t bother then it doesn’t change much. If they do care, then more tags will be required and the cost will somewhat scale with the sec status of the system those outlaws operate in.
I have to admit, since I’ve always been an angel, I do not know a lot about how tags operate. If tags can’t be used as often as a player requires in order for a player to maintain a high enough sec status for their purposes, then this suggestion would not be effective, but the way it sounds when people speak of it makes it seem tags are easily available and usable if players can afford them.
There could be other problems I haven’t thought of, especially since I have never had low sec status nor wanted to raise mine. I do not know how effective or expensive tags are, or where they come from. If you see something wrong with the idea, or you just don’t like it, that’s fine, but please try to express it kindly.