Ships, and where they are placed

[sovereign]

Correction- you can be full green to a faction and full red to their guard, or vice versa. You have to either take a bribe or do missions for a faction to improve guard rep, whacking or helping their friends affects faction rep, not guard rep. Thus, while it is easy-ish to get guards to all be friendly, you have to do it, and like you said player factions have more sway.

THEN AGAIN, Korrd made them have that sway even now. If you have a capship, the player factions can beat you up if you don't either ask nicely or RP appropriately. Silence can get you killed, bye bye to the twerps who just sit quietly and kill NPCs/slow-moving players.

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