My suggestion re bounties and fines.

[Darth-Simba]

I think that if you have a bounty below a certain amount say <5000 (because anything higher is usually murder) then if scanned by the fuzz, they should tell you to return to the nearest starbase and pay your bounty off. Failure to do so in a certain amount of time (say 10 minutes or so) THAT'S when they attack, rather than everything turning against you for a 200cr bounty.

Or in your systems tab (rank etc one) You could have a list of crimes committed, ie assault, speeding, murder, manslaughter. And only certain crimes warrant a shoot to kill, on sight mechanic.

The fuzz dialogue could be like "You are wanted for questioning in regards to assaulting another vessel" You could even try to plead your way out of it or something like that.

In conclusion, crimes would have a lot more diversity to them and not just "crap I shot that trader by accident while trying to kill that deadly conda pirate, I must run now."

 

[Bomburban]

Yea, id like not to be shot for minor accidents, but since they kill you for getting parking ticket, i don't see them changing it.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

The whole law thing is just a complete mess.
Shooting a ship that's shooting a friend, that you haven't finished scanning?
Punishment: Death

Parked up outside a station. Cop rams you and dies.
Punishment: Death

I totally get the loitering death penalty. Players are just annoying sometimes, and the AI does often get stuck.
It's a good solution.

Assaults being a 200cr bounty, makes no sense considering 99% of assaults are accidental. And assaults that are on purpose, usually end in a murder bounty. Lol

Like the OP said, if the fuzz scan you, they'll alert you to the fact you owe XXXcr in fines. And failure to do so within a certain time frame (2 game hours) will convert that to a bounty.

But knowing FD....


Speeding
Punishment: Death

 

[Macy]

Yeah. A small fine shouldn't equal "wanted". None payment of fines equals "wanted" in the real world.