In the case of those missions its clearly stated that the missions are illegal. When its for the military you can think of it as black ops missions. You get caught, they will deny all knowledge of you and the mission. If you try and claim they gave you the mission, then you might expect you would end up having a nasty accident involving a staircase, a pair of electrodes, and a bucket of water.
You know it never occured to me to think of these missions as a Black Op!
Did you miss the "Activity considered illegal" note on the mission when you accepted it?
The stolen flag and the circumstances under which it is set are not the problem, the other mechanics around it just need developing.
Yeah I did notice that it states in some missions that this activity is considered illegal, but it doesn't appear in all of them and that is what confuses me, it's when the Illegal Activity Notice doesn't appear we should at least get a Salvage Licence or something similar.
Salvage permits: These should indeed be a thing. Lets you legally scoop free-floating cargo in the system, having it marked as "salvage" rather than "stolen" but so as they don't introduce a hole pirates can use, the cops will only honor your salvage permit if you're locally clean. If you're not then they treat "salvage" as "stolen" - you can either surrender your salvaged cargo to the station authorities for half price (yes this is INTENTIONALLY the same as what you could get for it if you smuggled it and sold it on the black market) and keep your salvage permit for future use, or sell it for full price on the black market, losing your salvage permit in the process. That way most salvaged stuff you'll want to get rid of legally, but if you stumble across some seriously high profit cans you might be tempted to "divert". The authorities take a dim view of it and will void your permit but for twice the profit it might be something a cmdr considers "worth it"
Add this depth and with it the ability for an ingenious pirate or smuggler to make higher incomes by playing "smart" and the current "stolen" flag mechanic ceases to be an issue.
I think it would definitely add a new dynamic to the game and possibly, if taken to its logical conclusion, it could introduce a new career type, the Salvagers. Salvaging derelict craft & abandoned, dealing in spare parts and finding and selling lost goods.
I think we need to try and use some Maritime Law and apply it for Space, like defining Flotsam and Jetsam.
Taken from Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flotsam,_jetsam,_lagan_and_derelict
In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict are specific kinds of shipwreck. The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage:
- Flotsam is floating wreckage of a ship or its cargo.
- Jetsam is part of a ship, its equipment, or its cargo that is purposely cast overboard or jettisoned to lighten the load in time of distress and is washed ashore.
- Lagan (also called ligan) is goods or wreckage that is lying on the bottom of the ocean, sometimes marked by a buoy, which can be reclaimed.
- Derelict is cargo that is also on the bottom of the ocean, but which no one has any hope of reclaiming (in other maritime contexts, derelict may also refer to a drifting abandoned ship).
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