Criminal Flagging System Eve Online

Criminal flagging system eve online and how it works, in this article I will try to explain how the criminal flag system in eve online works. First of all let’s understand exactly what the criminal flag in eve online is and what it is for. Criminal flag is when one eve player does an act to another player in eve online that is deemed to be a criminal act. These include stealing someone’s belongings or straight out shooting someone’s ship/pod. There are other ways to be criminally flagged and we will discuss this at a later stage, I will try and explain the criminal flagging system by categories. These categories are as follows.

• Stealing items
• Looting from someone’s wrecks
• Shooting someone
• Repairing someone
• Structure Aggression
• Faction Standings
• Faction Warfare
• Pirates
• Security Loss
• System Security

High security space the criminal flagging system is relatively straight forward. High security is any system that is 0.5 security and above. These systems have what can simply be classed as law enforcement agencies; these can include military factions and Concord police. These law enforcement agencies can and will react to some types of criminal activity, but not all criminal activity will make these parties get involved.

Low Security space this is 0.4 to 0.1 systems and it does still have laws and consequences, however there are no real military or concord to speak of. The only things that will attack you if you do a criminal action are gate guns, station guns etc.

Null security or 0.0 is a lawless land and it is very hard to become criminally flagged, in fact I have never seen it before. But in some NPC null sec if you shoot a factions station it will shoot back.

Stealing

This is when another eve player takes something that belongs to you or your corporation. For this section I am classing stealing as taking from a jet can or container in space. For this example lets say you are in a corporation and you are mining in an asteroid belt in a 0.8 security system. Another eve player not in your corporation or alliance etc approaches your mining jet can, a jet can is simply a container that appears when you jettison some or all of your cargo into a cargo container in space. When the player gets in to range of the jet can he opens and steals the entire contents or even 1 unit of the contents. This eve player has just stolen from you and yourcorporation, this means he is criminally flagged to your entire corporation and should appear in your overview with a solid red background.\

Once a player is criminally flagged to any person/corporation he will stay this way for 15 minutes unless he keeps stealing or resetting the criminal flag. Now when a player is showing in your overview with a solid red background this generally means  they are a criminal. Now depending on your system security this may be a flag to you or your corporation, where in low sec they may simply be a pirate we will discuss pirates at a later stage. Well the eve player is now criminal to you and your corporation and it is now up to you and your corporation if you want to retaliate and punish the thief, however be very careful some of these players use this process to get kills in high security space.

At this stage the other player is criminally flagged to you and your corporation, but he still cannot attack you or your corp. members or he will be attacked by Concord. The only way he can shoot at you is if you shoot at him when he is solid red. Once you shoot at the thief you are now criminally flagged to him and he can return fire, but this is only to people that shoot at him first. This means that even if you have 10 corporation members in the asteroid belt if only 2 of them shoot at him, he can only attack those 2 players. I suggest you only retaliate if you are sure you can kill this player.

Now this works a little different in low security, if you and your corporation members are in an asteroid belt and a pilot warps in. Be ready for him to attack immediately, he does not need to steal from you, this is because in low security there are no military or concord ships to protect you. So he can engage you freely. In low security as soon as a pilot shoots at you they immediately become globally criminally flagged. This means this pilot will instantly be solid red to you and your corporation members. But because he attacked you he is also flagged to everyone in eve for 15 minutes, he will also be flagged in local chat with a skull beside his name to tell everyone in system he is a criminal. If he warps in range of any gate guns or station guns they will also shoot him, he also cannot jump into a system that is 0.5 or higher, as the military and concord will attack him while he is criminally flagged.

Null security is very simple, even if it belongs to you anyone can take it and there are no repercussions. Well there is if you decide to blow the thief’s ship up. But basically no gate guns and station owners don’t care.

Looting

This is when you take the cargo from a ship that has been destroyed and it is known as looting. For this example I am going to use NPC wrecks but it is the same for player owned ships as well. Now let’s say you have just destroyed an NPC ship in high security space, the wreck will appear on your overview as a white wreck icon. This means the wreck belongs to you and you can loot it and not be flagged criminally to anyone. Now let’s say you warp into an asteroid belt and there is already an NPC wreck there, but this wreck icon is yellow. This wreck belongs to someone else and if you take any items from this wreck you will be criminally flagged to the pilot and his corporation. But if you warp into an asteroid belt and there is an NPC wreck there and its wreck icon is blue. This means the wreck has been abandoned and anyone can take the loot. Another thing to be careful of is when you are missioning with other people there was a nasty little trick people used to get you criminally flagged to them. While you are salvaging and looting the wrecks the mission owner docks in station. This now makes the wrecks turn yellow and if you take any loot from them you will be flagged to the mission owner. I am not sure if this still exists, but watch for it.

This works exactly the same in low security space, but stealing from someone’s wrecks will only flag you the them and their corporation members. You will not be shot by gate guns or stations.

Null security has no flagging for looting at all.

Now just as an important note to clarify between looting and salvaging. Looting is when you take any dropped modules that appear in the cargo window of a destroyed ship. Salvaging is when you activate a module which retrieves salvage from the destroyed ships hull. The person who destroyed the ship may have ownership to the loot in the ship, but nobody owns the actual wreck. This means anyone can salvage the actual wreck, but please note when the wreck is salvaged the items that were in the wreck will now drop into a container floating in space. This container will still belong to the same owner, so if it is yellow to you do not take the contents as you will be criminally flagged to the person and their corporation for 15 minutes.

Shoot another player

Now this is where the security level and the responses vary greatly. If you are in high security systems, this is above 0.5 and you shoot someone or they shoot you. The military and concord will react and come to aid the person being attacked. The response times of the well lets say police vary depending on the actual level of the system. For this example lets say a person has attacked you, we will go down the security levels ad give a rough time before you can expect a police response. Now this is assuming you are in a location that no concord or military are already at, for example a gate or station.

For this example lets say you are in an asteroid belt killing NPC’s, in comes another pilot who then attacks you. Now if you are in a 1.0 system, this is specified as one of the safest level systems to be in. This means the response time should be fast. I think you will be waiting anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds for help to arrive. If you are in a 0.9 security system we would hope for a response in between 8 to 15 seconds. In a 0.8 system you would hope for a response of around 15 to20 seconds. This keeps climbing as the security drops, I am not sure but from experience I think you can add about 10 seconds per security level dropped. So in a 05. System you should not expect a response in less than 30 seconds so here’s hoping you have the tank to survive.

Now in low security space, there are no police or military ships to help you if you get shot in an asteroid belt. Fight or die these are your only real options. But in low security you have a little protection on the gates and at stations. No small ships will engage you, as they will be destroyed by the guns. But do not think you are safe; these low security systems attract a lot of pilots looking to become pirates. They setup gate camps; these are simply larger gangs of usually Battle cruiser and larger ships. They get on high traffic low security gates and kill whatever jumps in. Because there are usually many of them the gate guns spread out and shoot multiple targets therefore reducing their effectiveness. After they blow the ship up that came
through the gate, they loot the wreck and warp away to wait for the next victim.

Null security has none of these flags again, but they have worse gate camps, because the can set up warp disruptor bubbles which stop people form warping quickly.

Repairing Aggression

This criminal flagging system is there to stop people from being repaired by neutrals etc. When in High security people use neutral characters to repair them so the other party is unaware that there is an affiliation between the repair ships. This is mostly used by griefers and corporations that run high security wars. Now it is very simple how it works and you should always be aware of any other people who get criminally flagged while you are fighting another player. Basically let’s use the example that your corporation is at war with a high security griefing corporation. Your corporation sees that you have more members in system then the griefers, so you decide to give them a fight.

You and your corporation members undock and engage 3 war targets; war targets should have a flashing red background in the overview if you have the default overview settings. So at this stage there are 3 flashing war targets in your overview and 3 other neutrals. All of a sudden 2 of the neutrals have now got a red background in the overview. This is because they are now repairing the war targets; this means you can also attack the 2 new enemies, as they are now flagged to you and your corporation members as criminals. If they are using proper logistics ships, these are ships that are primarily for repairing other ships. 2 logistic ships can repair a lot of damage and you will more then likely not kill your enemies now, I would suggest to de aggress and dock, as you will inevitably die.

This works the same way in low security space, the only difference being, if the other pilots are global criminals the logistics ship will also become globally flagged and will be shot by gate guns and station guns. There are no criminal flags in null security space for repairing other pilots. Also there was recently a change to repairing mechanics in high security space. If a pilot was repairing someone and the person they were repairing shot someone who was not flagged to them and they went global criminal. This meant the pilot repairing them went global as well and would be destroyed by concord. Many people used this as a griefing tactic as well, but it was recently changed so if a pilot is repairing someone who goes global in high security space. The pilot doing the repairing will lose their targeting lock on the ship they are repairing and this stops the repairer from being globally flagged and being destroyed by concord.

Structure Aggression

Now by structure we are talking about player owned structures, this is generally called a POS for short. Now for people that have a POS in high security space, I believe that a POS will not attack a player for simply warping into the vicinity of the POS. The POS can be set to attack a player if they are a war target or if they aggress the POS in anyway. This means if they are not a war target concord will be on the way to destroy them anyway. Now just as in the repairing section it works the same for if a war target is shooting at your POS and a neutral is there repairing the war target the repairer will be flagged as a criminal to your corporation. This means your POS can also shoot at the repairer’s ship.

Now low security space is a lot different to high security space for POS management. Corporations can set a POS to shoot a player for simply warping into the same area as the POS. This means if you warp to a moon that has a POS on it depending on its settings it may attack you even unprovoked. Now if you are attacked by a corporations POS even if you only warped in to take a look, you are now flagged as a criminal to the entire corporation for 15 minutes. I think this is a little silly, you did nothing and the POS attacked you, this should be the other way around, that corporation should be flagged to you. But alas this is not how it works, so make sure you stay safe for the 15 minutes. The POS can be setup to attack people for being in the vicinity, for having low security, for being a pirate, for being at war, for aggressing the POS. This is just to name a few wats a corporation can set their POS to deal with people that warp in. Now just as a note if you do warp into the vicinity of a POS and it shoots you, this now means the POS is criminally flagged to you. So you can now freely attack the POS and not lose any security standings for doing so. The rest of the info there is for another guide.

Now the same as usual for null security, there are nocriminal flags for being attacked or attacking another persons POS.

Faction Standings

The first and very important note for players is to make sure you keep track of your faction standings. In particular if you are a mission runner and you have been doing story line missions, this can quickly reduce your faction standings. Factions are all the different groups in eve online, for example Minmatar, Gallente, Amarr and Caldari are the primary factions. If you are running missions for Gallente factions you will more then likely have very bad standings against Amarr.

This means if you have a standing to Amarr of -5.0 or greater you will be attacked by the Amarr military as soon as you enter an Amarr sovereignty system. This can be very distressing especially if you are in an expensive ship when you enter the system. You can reduce the standings loss with all factions by training some simple skills the main skill is Social, this is under the Social skill tree. This effects agents and faction standings, you can also train Diplomacy however I believe this only effects agents standings not faction.

Faction Warfare

If you join faction warfare or join a corporation that is part of faction warfare you will be automatically flagged as a target to the opposing factions. I have not really taken a detailed look at faction warfare, but it is relatively simple to understand the mechanics. For example if you join the Minmatar militia or a corporation that is part of the Minmatar militia, you will be flagged to anyone that is part of the Amarr and Caldari factions. This also means you are flagged to the opposing military. So if you enter Amarr systems or Caldari systems above 0.5 security the military is going to try to blow your ship up. Faction warfare is about taking systems for your faction, the systems that the factions take are all between 0.4 and 0.1 security and there are many fights for these systems. The factions are Minmatar, Gallente, Amarr and Caldari. Minmatar and Gallente work together and Amarr and Caldari work together.

Pirates

Now there are flags for pirates, there are different coloured backgrounds and Icons that show what a pirate is. Now let’s start with what makes a person a pirate, well lets just say pirate just to represent the pilot. Not all people that have lower security are pirates. Let’s start with the first background colour and by background colour, this is the colour the pilot shows up in your overview. So if you see a pilot in your overview and the square box he is in has and orange coloured background. The orange  background simply signifies that this pilot’s security rating is below 0.0. I guess I should explain this security rating, every pilot has a security rating in eve, you can find it in your character sheet. Basically everything you do in eve can either have a positive action to your security rating or a negative effect. If you are a mission runner or you kill NPC’s in asteroid belts, the NPC’s may have a bounty and if they do when you destroy them you get the ISK bounty and a security increase. If you shoot any other player in eve that has no flag of any type to you, criminal, war target etc. You will be punished for doing it. Not only will you receive the appropriate criminal flag you will lose security standings. This depends on many things which I will explain in the next section.

Now if a pilot has a security rating of -0.01 or lower they will have an orange background in your overview. This does not give you any special rights to do anything to this pilot; it is just a warning that they have negative security. Now once a payer reaches -5.00 they are marked as a pirate. They have a solid red background in your overview. Like explained previously a solid red background in the overview means this person is flagged as a criminal Because this pilot is -5.00 he will always be solid red in everyone’s overview, unless he gets back to -4,99. But basically anyone can attack this pilot at anytime with no repercussions. These pilots can only live in low security or null security space. If they try to enter 0.5 security space or above concord and the military will try to destroy them. They can enter high security space in their pod, but they are still solid red in everyone’s overview, so if you are quick you may be able to destroy their pod.

Now besides these 2 overview background colours the only other way to determine pirates etc. is by skull icons. Now if a pilot shows in the local chat window with a skull, this means the pilot is globally criminally flagged. Basically he can be shot by anyone for the 15 minute timer, unless he does more criminal actions and extends his criminal counter. This pilot will also show in your overview with a solid red background and a skull icon.

Now if a pilot has a bounty, this is where someone has placed an ISK bounty for this person to be killed. Now the bounty system in eve is a little harsh, I say this because it is hard to collect the bounties. Let me explain how it works first. When a pilot gets below -1.00 another pilot can dock in stations and add a bounty to this pilot. If a pilot is not less then -1.00 you cannot place a bounty on them. Now the only way to collect a bounty is to destroy the pilots pod. This is why it is harsh, it is very hard to destroy a pod and if you do destroy a pod that is not a pirate you will get a large security loss for doing it. Now if a pilot has a bounty he will have a skull on his ship in your overview. This does not mean you can destroy his pod and
collect it.

A pilot may have a bounty, but they may also have a positive security standing. This means if you try to claim the bounty you may be punished for doing so, if you try to shoot them in high security, unless they are criminally flagged to you in their ship you will be blown up by concord.  Even if they are flagged to you as a criminal, as soon as you destroy their ship this flag is dropped until they get back into a ship. Their pod will not be flagged and if you try to shoot in high security you will be destroyed by concord and you will lose a huge security amount if you do destroy the pod. This means they would have to have a good bounty for it to b actually worth losing your ship and the security. Don’t get me wrong you can easily get security back, all
you need to do is kill NPC]’s that have a bounty.

It is the same for a pilot that has an orange background in the overview and has a skull to mark a bounty. They are not flagged for you to attack. The only pilot you can attack and try to recover the bounty with no repercussions is a full pirate. This is a pilot with below -5.0 security rating. It is still hard to kill that pod though.

Security Mechanics

The player security system works off of a few different factors, there is only one way to gain security, but there are many ways to lose security. The same can be said for gaining and losing security, it is very easy to lose security. But it can be slow and tedious to gain security. The only way ti gain security is by killing NPC’s that have bounties. These are known as rats in eve, so when someone says they are ratting to gain security you will know exactly what they mean. Now the only rats that have bounties are NPC’s that can show in asteroid belts, don’t get me wrong, you can get these NPC’s in missions and plex’s as well. But there are other types of NPC;s that you will never see in asteroid belts, but they are in missions and plex’s and
you will get no security increase from them at all.

Now lets start by going over the best ways to gain security, this is easy if you enjoy missioning or ratting. But for PvPers it can be boring and tedious. Now if you are running level 4 missions you will be killing battleship NPC’s etc so if you do many missions your security will increase over time. Now PvPers usually kill NPC battleships in null security space to increase their security. Just a tip for faster security increase. The way it works is you are given the largest security increase from the ship that had the most increase every 15 minutes. This means if you kill 5 battleships in 15 minutes, the one that had the largest security increase is the one you receive. For killing NPC’s in null security this takes forever. Now here’s a little secret, don’t tell anyone okay. The fastest way to get security increase is to kill an NPC in one system, then warp to the next systems gate and jump into the new system and go kill the next NPC.

The reason this works is because every time you jump through a gate you reset your session timer. This means you can get multiple security increases in 15 minutes instead of waiting for 1 every 15 minutes. Usually the biggest ship with the largest bounty has the best security increase. Now before I go on to tell you the many ways you lose security I will explain the way you gain and lose security. The security loss and security increase works in percentages. What this means if you have a very low security level. For this example we will say -8.00. When you kill an NPC you may get a 0.02% increase to your security. So 0.02% of -8.00 is much larger then 0.02% of -3.00, this means the further up you go the harder it gets to gain security and the longer it takes. But persevere it is worth it if you want to get back into high security. Losing security is the same; you simply lose a percentage of your current security level.

Now to lose security is a little different, you can lose more security for killing one ship then what you can gain from killing one NPC. For this example we will say you are in low security and you have found someone killing NPC’s in a belt. You decide it is a great opportunity and you are going to destroy this pilot’s ship. You warp in and scramble him; he was not a pirate and had no flags of any type to you so you now are globally flagged as a criminal to everyone in eve for 15 minutes. But not only this, you just lost security for attacking this pilot. No one comes to his aid and you destroy his ship getting the killing blow, you shout yay I did it. Well you just lost more security for getting the final blow on the killmail. You think what the heck I am going to try scramble his pod. Wow the pilot was silly he never tried to get away and you manage to scramble his pod. You think what the heck I got it; I am going to destroy it to. Splat the pod explodes, well splat you just lost a huge security chunk. Killing pods gives you a huge security loss and can sometimes not be worth the hassle to rebuild all that security.

Now just to point out a few things that some people don’t know. If you have a pod scrambled and someone else shoots it, you get the huge loss as well. There is always someone that just has to blow that pod up and they don’t care who loses security. Basically if you do not plan on killing a pod in Low security don’t even target it. In null security there is no punishment for killing pods at all. Now the security loss also works off the level of the system you are in at the time. If you blow someone up in a 1.0 system you are going to lose a lot more security then what you would if you blew them up in a 0.1 system.

Well that is about it for now, I am sure I have missed out some stuff and I will not say I know it all. But this will help a lot of people understand a lot more then they did about the criminal flagging mechanics in eve then they did before they read this. If you think this is absolute rubbish then tell me and I will try to improve things in the future. I really do hope this helps some people understand the mechanics better, so fly safe.