faction fleets getting angry over your disabled transponder far from their own territories will be fixed in the upcoming patch:
- Fixed bug where a patrol far from their home market would care about your transponder status if you interacted with them
other than that though, i think it makes perfect sense that patrols would have a problem with you running with disabled transponder in their home territory, pretty much regardless of circumstances. because that's the thing: even if you're fighting their enemies, the patrol can't know that you're on their side if you do not identify yourself. especially where they are currently under immediate military threat, wasting a patrol's time by making them chase a fleet that turns out to be friendly or neutral is kind of a big deal.
and i don't think i've ever seen faction patrols with disabled transponder, but even if those exist: you are still an independent (although maybe allied) fleet in their jurisdiction. the sector as a whole isn't exactly known for being very fair and just, so i don't see why a patrol not following the same standards to which they hold the player is "just dumb and broken".
I dont think this would ever happen given the tech level we are playing at. There would be sets of IFF codes, likely one a general ident and the other a tight coded and encrypted signal for just these sorts of occasions. Reminds me of a couple of episodes of The Expanse, when they had to alter IFF codes a few times.
Once you take a commission with a faction, youre basically handed a Letter of Marque, and your faction level is set accordingly---also youre given access to that Factions Military Market. This is a bit more the "allied" already lol.
Once you get to 80+, my vision of it is that youre a lot more then "allied". 100/100 would be much more then that, you would basically be Person of Import with a title dependant on the faction(Duke, Admiral, Grand Vizier, Friend of the Lord High Fish, etc whatever).
Also, mechanically in the game, there is no clear indication of where the "Home Territory" areas are...no borders, no signal on the screen..nada. In the Corvus map, you can basically sit in Magec never have to worry about transponder tomfoolery anywhere.
Good to know that at least one aspect of Xponders is being fixed!!