Is this permanent, or does this go away after the player stops smuggling at that market for a while?
It goes down very gradually. IIRC the trade volume that's "remembered" about goes down by 10% each month or so, and the smuggling scan won't kick off until the suspicion is above a small threshold, so even though multiplying by 0.9 each month won't ever take it to 0, it'll still effectively go away. After a while.
What about when you escape from combat before it even starts, with the dialog box option 'disengage' or flee or whatever it is? e.g. when a pirate fleet catches up to you. That currently gives you a -2 hit. Complaining about that has been my drum to bang for the last 6 months, so much thanks if you changed or will change that.
Right, same deal, no penalty.
This sounds interesting, from the brief description I'm not sure quite what it means overall though. Can't we already interact with objects after battle? But fleets don't chase the player with as much tenacity now?
It's when you're on top of a jump-point, and there's an enemy fleet on top of you. Currently it's very likely the interaction with the enemy fleet would take precedence, preventing you from jumping out even after a successful retreat.
This could be one of those thing where some unexpected behavior leads to players getting constantly profiled by the cops for being 'suspicious looking' and human rights lawyers will have to become involved. Maybe punishing players for possible, future crimes is a bit harsh and a little too realistic? I.e. if a player decides to 'go straight' and start legitimate trading then they still keep getting punished for their past misdeeds.
The point here is to add a risk to selling perfectly legal goods, but on the black market. It's not going to affect a player that doesn't use the black market, and the chance of getting nailed for this depends heavily on the existing suspicion level. Finally, the only punishment is a reputation hit, not confiscation.
Frankly, I'm not sure it's quite severe enough
Ultimately, it's supposed to be a check on "I'm going to smuggle with my transponder on and no one will stop me".