Crime reporting

[Deadlock989]

So how does that work?

Cops show up in minutes if you have crime reporting turned on. Presumably something in your ship - the 9v TI-86 that runs the whole show - communicates with the authority bases in the system.

Except we're told that FTL communications are impossible. You can't look at the market rates or turn in missions at a station in another star system, or even within the same system, or even from sub-FTL speeds 50m outside the station. You can't send space-texts to people outside of your instance if you're in a USS.

You can broadcast space-texts from supercruise to everyone else in supercruise (I think), maybe because your frame is shifting and so is theirs (makes no sense but hey). Also, Galnet appears to have no issues with broadcasting news to everywhere in space simultaneously. Ditto the hilarious Powerplay statistics.

So if I can summon the space filth and read space newspapers, why can't I look up the price of space milk, or e-mail some proof that I took out the deadly milk-stealing pirates of XYZ1234 instead of physically hauling myself there?

Is it because BALANCE?

 

[Monk]

This is the same logic problem I've brought up since pre-release beta.

You could simplify this argument even more...if I can see people from several thousand LS away in SC, why can't the system's markets transmit data.

I've come to the conclusion that beacon systems are much better at traversing long distances. There are wing beacons, which your mates can see from afar, ships in SC are kind of like their own beacons, when your ship wants to report a crime it sends up a police beacon...etc..
Actual transmission of information is more complicated... Of course, this is all just conjecture and has no explanation whatsoever.