Unlawful Bases.

[hribek]

BHG is the lone exception. We can not only follow pirates to their bases, we can also go there to look for wanted pirates. We know where the bases are, but we're never ever telling anyone else. Militaries shouldn't pursue with large capitals (risk of losing them in the field due to collision or bomber ambush) and house police shouldn't pursue in the fields, or far away anywhere (as you said, their job is done when commerce, civilians or whoever they're protecting is safe).

House security forces are a bit of a grey area. But in general terms, it always applies that the ZoI size is
Police < Military < Bounty Hunters

According to original Freelancer neuralnet data.

Pirate bases have enough defense capabiities now, so it is your job to blow the bounty hunter in seconds, actually. Or dock and let the turrets do it. I seriously doubt that a large number of BHG ships would waste their time camping a pirate base when they can't get any bounties there - we're in it for the money.

Edit: also there's this funny thing that bases increase their refire rate acording to the number of ships within range which creates epic shieldfails of enemy capital ships and slow fighters / bombers.