@ Gothars: Would dropping relations down to inhospitable satisfy your faction? If not, then this is useless since you still lose reputation with your faction. Your idea would be good, if inhospitable is enough to keep the boss happy.
Yeah, sure, as I wrote: "I was thinking, maybe it would be enough if you get automatically dropped to "inhospitable" with other_faction,
at which point your relationship to your faction is stable."
Of course, if you get all cuddly with the other_faction, above "inhospitable", you would again be hit with regular rep penalties by your faction.
Random shakedowns were aggravating to say the least; I am glad to see them gone! The current way is better if you really need to sneak.
I completely agree, but that was largely because they were ubiquitous, felt completely arbitrary and took forever to get through.
If you bind them to a very specific condition where they make sense and make them more succinct they might be fun. If you're in the space of an inhospitable faction I think it would make sense to get inspected because
- you can't trade legally and the likelihood you're there for illegal business is indeed high, and
- the faction doesn't like you and wants to make your life hard.
I mean, atm running with illegal goods is pretty much risk free (read: boring) if you always keep your transponder on. Some more need for sneakiness from time to time would not hurt.
Neither would clearer differentiation between faction reputation levels.