I've noticed that a lot of CtCers are admired in Daltas Hold and Bractus Watch (Sedina L2, and Bractus C5, respectively), and thus exploit their admired status to kill transports in those sectors without fear of getting killed by players.

I don't really mind if the transport is attacked or even killed in their starting sectors (I figure that if you let it happen, you're not doing your job properly), but it's a pain in the butt to defend if you can't actually shoot the person who's attacking your transport without fear of killing your standing.

Perhaps it could be that if an admired player attacks the transport, then their admired status is temporarily removed so they can be killed without penalty. Or maybe the transports could be labeled "Admired" by either Xang-Xi or Ineubis to penalize attackers. So either players could kill them in the transport's starting sector, or they could be admired, but not both.

sounds more like a whine then a fix to me, just wait for them and kill them out of zone. It's not that hard.

that's not a whine. It's a valid point. Taking advantage of your Admired status in those stations to commit a crime (destroying a transport) is an exploit, and a loophole in the faction standing system.

I've always supported any suggestion that if you attack another player or NPC, you forfiet your protection for the duration of your stay in that sector. Doing that would stop alot of these wrongfull standing losses.

Why not reroute the transport around these two sectors?

Not a whine at all. When the cargo-carrier has jumped away, chances to recover cargo are pretty grim - and this is an understatement.

If you want to prevent the admired status exploit, there is a further complication: an attacker can kill the transport, another can take the cargo and laugh at the defenders. Anyway, CP's suggestions would make it harder.

Another way to solve the issue could be to temporarily remove the permanent KOS status when the transport is in the sector ("we Xiang Xi/Ineubis do not want to be involved in your big pointless nation wars"). This would allow defenders with bad local standing to do their job without being chased by the strike force.

John: the problem is that an ATTACKING player who is respected at the station the convoy originates from can kill the transport in that sector. If a defender kills the attacker to stop him, THE DEFENDER take a reputation penalty with that faction.

The attacking player doesnt have to wait to kill the transport, and the defenders cant do anything about it. Killing the attacker will quickly make it so that the defender cannot enter that sector because the defbots will chase him/her away.

Crippled's suggestion that the transports become Admired by the station they leave from would prevent that, forcing players to kill the transport in an unmonitored sector or loose standing with the station it launches from.

I think the best improvement here would be to decrease the penalty for killing admired characters in monitored space (at least in grey space), and to make the transport admired. That way, people will be more likely to be willing to take the faction standing penalty either attacking or defending, and it evens the playing field for attackers & defenders.

Actually, I love the idea of making the transports admired with their starting sector. it fits just into the view of things, and if you kill it in plain view, you're fscked. :)

Eh :) I like the idea of having the NFZ evaporate when the 5 minute warning comes up, and then be reinstated as soon as the transport leaves the sector. Would be a great way to promote station fighting.

The main thing, I guess is that I don't want to prevent players from attacking the transport in the starting sectors, but I do want there to be some sort of defense and/or consequence of doing so.

Making the transport admired would make people think twice about killing the trans in the starting sector, but then again, it might keep people from doing it completely.

I personally like the idea that all penalties are removed either when the transport is attacked, or when the 5 minute warning comes up, or something. Then there'll be lots of kills and lots of fighting over the transport. I think that the only thing that should remain in the NFZ is that the station guards kill mines, as well as rockets that are 500m away from the station and are headed towards it. That would prevent large-scale griefing (think lightning-mines around the dock to lock out one team), while still allowing battle.