Transponder module with antenna
This could be an upgrade to a standard antenna, or a standalone added ship block. The idea (from a comment on another thread) being that the transponder is how your ship appears to other grids. The idea being that a standard transponder says what faction you are, your personal ID, etc. The fun part is that you could have this transponder damaged in combat or intentionally shut off (so you become 'unknown', perhaps attacked by normally friendly grids...or you could possibly alter your transponder to make it possible to appear to be a different faction (with less than 100% success). This might let you get close to an enemy grid
If factions become a thing, then doing something 'questionable' while your transponder is off should cause less or no faction hit (as long as you don't get caught) otherwise.
I like this feedback
Sailing ships of old would carry various flags(colours) to indicate their status, but would not necessarily show most of them unless they were in fleet or with an ally.
The Jolly Roger was raised on an attack run to scare the victim ship into surrender.
Running a neutral identifier would be a choice to avoid engagement or other identifiers when in difficult territory.
Verification codes could be required with an identifier to allow the use that identifier.
Displaying your real identifier could be required when docking at a station.
Sailing ships of old would carry various flags(colours) to indicate their status, but would not necessarily show most of them unless they were in fleet or with an ally.
The Jolly Roger was raised on an attack run to scare the victim ship into surrender.
Running a neutral identifier would be a choice to avoid engagement or other identifiers when in difficult territory.
Verification codes could be required with an identifier to allow the use that identifier.
Displaying your real identifier could be required when docking at a station.
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Having your transponder off (intentionaly or otherwise) could have other faction-related impacts as when you're docking at a colonization authority base (for example), they might question why your transponder was shown to be off at some point along the trip.
This would obviously require some sort of additional interactions (NPC space cops or whatever), but that would tie into factions in general. Break the colonization authority up into sub-factions like 'colonization security, who have their own missions or colonization emergency responders (CER) who go rescue ships or stations in hazard. Heck, they might even rescue you if you're lucky with a ship out of fuel and drifting towards Delfos.
Currently, it seems to be implied that your transponder is somewhat built into your antenna. Being able to separate that and shut off or manipulate the output to appear to be part of a different faction would be a fun additional layer to ship to ship (or ship to station) interactions.
The renegades might try to spoof a legitimate ship signal to get close to your base, and there should be some method to detect a spoofed signal. Ideally something that is never 100%, but increasingly harder to spoof as your tech tree advances. Same in reverse, if you're trying to spoof a signal to approach a base, some basic renegade outpost should be easier to fool than an advanced military facility or battleship.
Having your transponder off (intentionaly or otherwise) could have other faction-related impacts as when you're docking at a colonization authority base (for example), they might question why your transponder was shown to be off at some point along the trip.
This would obviously require some sort of additional interactions (NPC space cops or whatever), but that would tie into factions in general. Break the colonization authority up into sub-factions like 'colonization security, who have their own missions or colonization emergency responders (CER) who go rescue ships or stations in hazard. Heck, they might even rescue you if you're lucky with a ship out of fuel and drifting towards Delfos.
Currently, it seems to be implied that your transponder is somewhat built into your antenna. Being able to separate that and shut off or manipulate the output to appear to be part of a different faction would be a fun additional layer to ship to ship (or ship to station) interactions.
The renegades might try to spoof a legitimate ship signal to get close to your base, and there should be some method to detect a spoofed signal. Ideally something that is never 100%, but increasingly harder to spoof as your tech tree advances. Same in reverse, if you're trying to spoof a signal to approach a base, some basic renegade outpost should be easier to fool than an advanced military facility or battleship.
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