Indicate ships with "report crimes off" in radar and contacts

[Killnine]

This is kind of a variation of my earlier suggestion: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/notorious-cmdrs-should-show-on-galmap-and-radar.508005

As the subject says, ships flying with "report crimes off" should be indicated with a different colour or icon in the contacts list and radar. This would serve two purposes:
1) It can be used as a "PvP flag", declaring you're looking for PvP.
2) ... and it would serve as a warning sign for those who want to avoid it.

The report crimes function could probably be spun into the lore as being an automatic transponder and have more game play effect, for example wrt. anonymous access, detecting wanted status, and what not.

 

[Clicker]

I fly with Report Crimes off.
This does not necessarily mean I'm looking for PvP.

Your idea isn't all bad...perhaps it could be displayed along with the info you get after you've scanned a ship rather than an instant visual via colour or icon.

Clicker

 

[Bloodsign]

Hmm, should a dark transponder also make a ship more stealthy?

 

[Ian Doncaster]

It should certainly be visible on scan - you get a fairly prominent warning if any ship near you changes its status from crimes on to crimes off, or vice versa, but if they don't change it in front of you the only way to find out is to shoot them, which is bizarre.

It's not just a PvP flag, sure - I run crimes off primarily so that the NPCs don't try to steal my kills or scare them so much they run away - but it should still be visible to others.

 

[Killnine]

Hmm, should a dark transponder also make a ship more stealthy?

Not necessarily. I think it would work along the lines of: 1) a ship is picked up on scanner, 2) transponders automatically exchange information. I guess the ping and pong sent by the transponder confirm you're there and give out your location. Then again, perhaps transponders don't "spam" their pings until they have a confirmed contact. This does, however, open a possibility for a new mechanism: the transponder could be set to "search" mode, meaning it will spam whatever contact, confirmed or not. This would give out your own identity and location, and confirm the identity and location of a contact unless it's running with transponder off. More stealth options would definitely be nice.

Naturally, flying with the transponder off would warrant investigation from the authorities, and once scanned while it's off, you get fined.

Hmm, pretty certain this could introduce a number game play features/variations. Perhaps anonymous access would require "flying dark" (insert hand waving about fake identity, and using one preventing access to some services requiring stronger authentication). Stations could initiate a scan on all confirmed contacts, meaning smugglers would have to fly dark as well. I would certainly like smuggling to have more difficulty and risk, coupled with considerably higher rewards.