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[Regularity]

In my opinion, I think there should be a more restrictive hard cap on minimum and maximum reputation hits. The particular event that brought this about was after getting in good with the Independent faction by saving multiple colonies from starvation, I bought some large weapons on the black market, which after an investigation tanked my standing by -85 to make it inhospitable. In other words, I had saved millions of the faction's citizens, but one illegal trading scandal had made them completely forget about it. 

I've noticed similarly disproportionate reputation hits from being found guilty during food shortage investigation events, even when I had not caused the shortage (or alternatively, did so accidentally by buying all the food on one planet to feed a starving planet elsewhere in the same system).

On the other side of the coin, there seems to be a hard cap for positive reputation for trading -- even when relieving a starving population -- at about 50 points. It strikes me as a bit odd that killing a faction's Most Wanted Criminal can eventually raise you to 100 points, but saving millions of lives stops generating goodwill at 50 points.

So I would make a few suggestions:
- Add a hard cap on the reputation hit for investigation blame events. It doesn't seem consistent if buying 2 illegal weapons nets you a slap-on-the-wrist, but buying 10 illegal weapons gets you banned from a faction's planets entirely.
- Allow trading to boost reputation up to 100. After all, if a particular merchant handles millions of credits of contracts in a faction, you'd think he'd be able to have a little clout (campaign donations to politicians, bribery for officials, etc).
- Potentially add an option to donate (or at-cost) food during food shortage events. Players could forgo profit in exchange for a much larger reputation boost, and grant immunity to food shortage investigation events. Perhaps expanding on this idea of buying reputation, maybe each faction could have a way to be bribed. (Bribe Hegemony politicans, Sindrian Diktat junta officers, fund the construction of Luddic megachurches, offer lucrative discounts to Tri-Tachyon traders, etc). But this might be getting off-topic.

[SafariJohn]

- Allow trading to boost reputation up to 100. After all, if a particular merchant handles millions of credits of contracts in a faction, you'd think he'd be able to have a little clout (campaign donations to politicians, bribery for officials, etc).

I don't disagree, but many small transactions shouldn't keep giving +1s until you hit 100. Instead there should be caps. Such as: any transaction below 10,000 credits won't boost your rep if you're at 10 or above.

[Nori]

I heartily support all the ideas you put up.
The faction relation hits from smuggling are quite harsh...

[Ashe Leclair]

+1

[Camael]

Agreed, very much so. Hey, this topic is alive, someone please notice.

Especially with the unwarranted hits. You smuggle? Okay, take a hit, it might be severe, though it should not be game breaking (as hostile standing with the indies pretty much is.) Cause a food shortage so You can make quantastillions of $$$, and be the hero on top? Take a hit. Be a random scapegoat without even getting Your day in court? That's crap. Have been bounty-hunting my rep up to 66 with a faction (hard thing to do, at +3rep for a medium sized fleet including a cruiser...) and did one run of 300 food to one starving planet. Investigation. Relation -84. Game breaker. They went almost hostile with me.
Maybe limit the random crap relation hits to two or three times the rep You gained for that relief mission. I got +4rep for that. -12 would hurt, but not throw my entire plan.
I know the universe is supposed to be a cruel and unfair place, and the "officials" are supposed to be incredibly corrupt... but seriously? I will not touch a single food shortage again until this is resolved. There goes the whole trade idea down the drain. Please don't frustrate players with stuff they have no influence over. Especially if it's a -8x hit to relations... seriously?

[Megas]

Buying food from a market should not cause investigations.  No other game I can think of punishes you for buying things from the open market.  This is police corruption at its finest... or worst?

Prices of commodities gradually lower as you sell more, except food during a shortage.  Food prices should decay as you sell more like other commodities, and food gluts be stricken from the game.

I would donate food or other hot commodities if I got a larger XP boost.  After all, XP gain is the primary reason I trade.  Sure, I will take big money too, but I really want the XP to powerlevel my characters.

Given the current food glut rules, I sell excess food to the Independents' black market.  If I will take a huge penalty for causing a food glut, I might as well smuggle for an even bigger profit at the cost of a slightly greater penalty.  As a bonus, my reputation with pirates increase, and I can pursue them without dropping relations to Vengeful for a while.

[nomadic_leader]

another profoundly unfun mechanic: getting investigation/penalties when you didn't do any smuggling at all, just because you traded at hostile pirate markets with a smuggling-related stability penalty.

 "but realism! corruption..." 

no. it's just profoundly unfun. false accusations are for real life, not games. and come on, they're pirates. why are pirates doing more smuggling investigations than anyone else in the game?

Bad RNG rolls that you can't do anything about are not fun. Bad RNG rolls that give you a chance to use skill to avoid a bad effect are ok. Example:

unfun= RNG roll triggers investigation and another RNG roll makes you guilty -5 rep points. You can do nothing.

fun= Bad RNG triggers more patrols or something, but you can use skill/stealth to dodge them, but without getting more stupid penalties.

[Schwartz]

What if being convicted of smuggling on a certain world makes that world send out a debt-collector fleet. They then have to chase you based on probabilities, sensor data and other fleets and stations they successfully 'questioned'. After X amount of time they'd give up. If they catch you, it's either paying the fine (which gives you back your standing) or lasers.

Going back to the same world would require you to pay that fine (possibly a little less as an incentive to 'come clean') up-front to engage in market activities again, and to undo the standing hit.

[Talkie Toaster]

What if being convicted of smuggling on a certain world makes that world send out a debt-collector fleet. They then have to chase you based on probabilities, sensor data and other fleets and stations they successfully 'questioned'. After X amount of time they'd give up. If they catch you, it's either paying the fine (which gives you back your standing) or lasers.

Going back to the same world would require you to pay that fine (possibly a little less as an incentive to 'come clean') up-front to engage in market activities again, and to undo the standing hit.

Oooh, or the fines are levied the same way customs fees are- if you return to the planet, the patrols shake you down for an extra 10k in fees. Then if you're a smuggler, you can try and avoid that by dodging patrols anyway. Prompt payment costs minimal standing, but standing decays more the longer you dodge (up to a limit).

Maybe that would make more sense for Independents if they were system-based and factions like the Hegemony should have a sector-wide set of fines?

[Tartiflette]

I think smuggling normal stuff should be considered as tax evasion and not a crime: it could drop your reputation down to just below welcoming (but not all the time) and if you get inspected you could get fined like other proposed. Smuggling illegal items however should stay a crime and trigger the big investigations and could turn the market hostile to you.

[nomadic_leader]

I think smuggling normal stuff should be considered as tax evasion and not a crime: it could drop your reputation down to just below welcoming (but not all the time) and if you get inspected you could get fined like other proposed. Smuggling illegal items however should stay a crime and trigger the big investigations and could turn the market hostile to you.

We're overthinking it. How about we just don't get smuggling investigations unless we actually smuggled.  Nobody minds so much a chance of getting busted when they actually smuggled, but the ad naseum false accusations just because of the active market stability penalty are too much.

Starsectors designers are obviously very talented and thoughtful... however this means they do sort of overthink things at times and make mechanics more complicated than they need to be in a way that could never be transperant to the player unless they read the forums and pick through the datafiles. 

So false accusations from hostile markets-- sounds interesting in theory, frustrating in practice, unnecessary for balance.

[Tartiflette]

I never had that, every time I got an investigation I had at least bought a weapon on the black market during refit or had to buy some supplies there. I remember have had multiple investigation finding me guilty in a row for the same trade though, but that was in 0.65.1 and I never got this with 0.65.2. Still, my idea stand: you shouldn't get investigated unless you really did something bad! After all a market having shortages would never mind getting some much needed items to the point of banning the trader, especially when you can fine him to get both his future trades and more money than the tariff.

[Megas]

This is usually true.  However, cleaning out all food from open market can cause a food shortage and a subsequent investigation that hurts your reputation if found guilty.  That one case is infuriating.  If the market really needs that food, it should not be offered for sale in the open market!  Never in my 30+ years of gaming have I played a game that punishes you for buying legal merchandise from the open market legally.

[Alex]

(Just a quick note: very much aware there are some issues here and will look at it at some point. Given all the stuff in the works right now, though, this isn't even on my radar for the near future, and it's not something I could just fix up in a couple of minutes.)

[Meteo]

the faction system is currently broken. I do a few food runs for relief efforts and end up inhospitable with every faction. With the way faction is lost and gained right now, no matter what you do, you will inevitably end up with every faction, except probably one, being inhospitable to you. Up to a point, this game becomes unplayable as a trader.