I already gave a rather harsh reply to the OPs post. I stand with all I said several posts above - but that said:Nanook wrote: ↑Mon, 4. Jul 22, 19:38I don't think it should be removed, but there should be consequences for boarding any ship. Had never done 'flyby boarding' before so I tried it out on a Teladi freighter. 23 veterans vs 70+ mediocre marines and crewmembers. Right after sending the pods, the freighter turned red and started firing at me. I left it alone after the pods were all safely onboard. Several minutes later, the freighter turned back to blue (neutral) while my marines were still hacking their way through the hull. Meanwhile, it was merrily flying around trading with stations, selling its wares. After another 15-20 minutes, my marines finally break through the hull and start killing off crew. All the while this was happening, the ship stayed blue, no warnings by the ship and no calls for help. The ship stayed blue right up until it turned green (mine) with no marine losses. And I have a totally intact ship with no rep loss. BTW, that was right next to a Teladi station.
I'll never do this again since it's obviously a cheesy exploit. I say retain the very hard option, but make the ship become permanently hostile, have it call for help, and fight back until the end. There's no way a ship should sail blithely along with no reactions while it's actively being attacked from within, especially with no rep loss.
If the OP just wanted better consequences for boarding, and not just a nerf or making it much harder, I have to agree. This should be in comparison to the relation to the owning faction: If I have good relations to TER, say 28 (like in my current game) it is really bad treason to capture an Asgard or a Syn from them. It should have harsh consequences, back to relation zero or so. I do not know if this can be done. But it should be rather hard, since it is actually quite easy to gain in relations.
If relations are bad, like the default -15 with TER (from Young Gun start), then it could cost less, but still should go down to a point, where it is hard to recover. It even could mean war, if the players relations to the faction are bad to begin with. The usual ship capturing from pirate factions are not touched by this, since they are frozen anyway (SCP).
Another way would be to just not do it, even if possible. This is what I do now...