Right now, having notoriety is essentially meaningless. There are players who have literally maxed out their bounty to the point where it rolls back over to zero. And if you want to get rid of it, you just leave your game on while docked overnight, and pow, it's gone.
IMO notoriety should instead be a sort of sliding scale, with both positive and negative values. If you commit no crimes and/or do good missions and deeds, like Search and Rescue, you get a positive notoriety. If you commit petty crimes, like theft or trespassing, you will get negative notoriety, but with a cap of zero. So it can take you DOWN to zero, but not into the negatives. And if you murder people, you start going way down into the negative values.
With negative values, you don't need a bounty; you are automatically blocked from docking at stations in civilized space, like the Federation and the Empire. Furthermore, the police and bounty hunters will chase you with increasing regularity, regardless of what ship you fly; past a certain point, it should be virtually constant interdictions if you've been in a system for more than about 30 seconds.
And other players should be able to see this value. If someone with a negative rep is chasing you, you know they're a ganker and to run. If it's neutral, they're probably a pirate and just want some of your cargo.
And the only way to change your reputation is by doing things, not just by sitting still. If you've got negative notoriety, you should need to go refuel stranded NPCs and unload damaged stations for a day or two before you become reputable again. Otherwise, you're functionally exiled to anarchy systems and/or Powers like Archon Delaine. And even then, they won't like you hanging around unless you're affiliated with them.
This gives a nice, lore-accurate, immersive, and interesting system that encourages piracy, encourages players to be in factions they're aligned with, and makes Notoriety actually meaningful, both to other players and the game as a whole.
IMO notoriety should instead be a sort of sliding scale, with both positive and negative values. If you commit no crimes and/or do good missions and deeds, like Search and Rescue, you get a positive notoriety. If you commit petty crimes, like theft or trespassing, you will get negative notoriety, but with a cap of zero. So it can take you DOWN to zero, but not into the negatives. And if you murder people, you start going way down into the negative values.
With negative values, you don't need a bounty; you are automatically blocked from docking at stations in civilized space, like the Federation and the Empire. Furthermore, the police and bounty hunters will chase you with increasing regularity, regardless of what ship you fly; past a certain point, it should be virtually constant interdictions if you've been in a system for more than about 30 seconds.
And other players should be able to see this value. If someone with a negative rep is chasing you, you know they're a ganker and to run. If it's neutral, they're probably a pirate and just want some of your cargo.
And the only way to change your reputation is by doing things, not just by sitting still. If you've got negative notoriety, you should need to go refuel stranded NPCs and unload damaged stations for a day or two before you become reputable again. Otherwise, you're functionally exiled to anarchy systems and/or Powers like Archon Delaine. And even then, they won't like you hanging around unless you're affiliated with them.
This gives a nice, lore-accurate, immersive, and interesting system that encourages piracy, encourages players to be in factions they're aligned with, and makes Notoriety actually meaningful, both to other players and the game as a whole.