I want to propose one of the following tweaks to the reputation system and wanted-mechanics:
The goal is to either eliminate (1.) what I call Magical Reputation Armour - the fact that killing a wanted NPC can hurt your reputation with their properly law-abiding faction, or alternatively (2.) make it so the player can always make an informed decision whether the NPC is wanted by their faction and does not have to essentially do a gamble whether they will lose reputation or not.
- When a ship is wanted and belongs to a legal faction (e.g. not labelled as "... is known to have a disdain for any laws...", destroying it yield no negative reputation with their faction. After all you were removing a "bad apple" from among their ranks, one they may have been simply unaware of.
- Alternatively, show when a ship is wanted by its own faction. Where in the bottom left panel you currently have the WANTED tag, if any revealed bounty is from their own faction, mark it thus, for example with an asterisk as WANTED* - the KWS reveals all bounties but does not tell us which factions the other bounties are from, and it is a crucial piece of information whether their own faction has issued a bounty on them, too.
The goal is to either eliminate (1.) what I call Magical Reputation Armour - the fact that killing a wanted NPC can hurt your reputation with their properly law-abiding faction, or alternatively (2.) make it so the player can always make an informed decision whether the NPC is wanted by their faction and does not have to essentially do a gamble whether they will lose reputation or not.