If the police do get escape pods, what sort of reward should there be for bringing them in? Would this be fixed, or would it vary according to the political status and/or the wealth of the system? I'd go for wealth, myself: a rich system should pay a higher reward than a poor one. Probably though it shouldn't be as high as the highest insurance payments, as rich merchants are going to be worth a lot more than the average cop. Maybe Cr150 tops, down to Cr50 at bottom?
Should there be any reduction in bounty for this, too? Obviously it shouldn't be anywhere close to the sort of increase you get for firing on/destroying a Viper ... but maybe for low bounties (say, 10 or less) there could be a chance that the rescued cop tears up your outstanding tickets and sets your record Clean. it's not going to happen very often, but it would be a memorable little event when it did.
Then we'll get into the whole bribeable cops thing.
Every time a cop is created is should have a corutability percentage and as a cop starts attacking you could offer him money to stop.
Then you get into the possibility that you could bribe the cops in an entire system to turn a blind eye to your unscrupulous activities.
If the police do get escape pods, what sort of reward should there be for bringing them in? Would this be fixed, or would it vary according to the political status and/or the wealth of the system? I'd go for wealth, myself: a rich system should pay a higher reward than a poor one. Probably though it shouldn't be as high as the highest insurance payments, as rich merchants are going to be worth a lot more than the average cop. Maybe Cr150 tops, down to Cr50 at bottom?
Every pilot has a role and the pilots with a Police role always have a fixed insurance of 125. Hunters on the other hand have a high insurance of 500, if they are insured. 75% of the hunters think they don't need an insurance and will end up as slaves if scooped. The fools.
Since they already have insurance, it seems a bit daft not to give the poor buggers escape pods..
Most games have some sort of paddling-pool-and-water-wings beginning to ease you in: Oolite takes the rather more Darwinian approach of heaving you straight into the ocean, often with a brick or two in your pockets for luck. ~ Disembodied
I've already done this in Switeck's Shipping OXP. Vipers tend to have about a 10-25% chance of an escape pod. (Viper Interceptors have 25%, reg Vipers have 10%.) This can either be done by the government or assumed to be done out of their own pocket by the police pilots themselves. Either way, it's uncommon.