If you're hostile with a major faction in a system, all their allies will become hostile to you, even if you're listed as friendly in the neural net. Makes sense really, who'd be a more powerful ally, one ship, or an entire faction? Tweaking your reputation is one of the best parts of the strategy of FL, IMHO.

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The Next Thing I Say To You Will Be True
The Last Thing I Said Was False

I dont know, I had a similar issue in the demo, as I took off from a base every thing started attacking me including the base i was on. They quickly killed me. So I loaded my auto save, which was just befor take off, and every thing was normal again.

I too had this happen once in Rheinland....(fun battle...I won flying a sabre) However my case was that the lane was disrupted by red hessians...I didn't feel like a fight so I re-entered the lane after it came back online. All of a sudden I notice all the lanes go red, as soon as I leave the lane at the end everyting goes red and everything in New berlin begins to attack me EVERYTHING. I had to kill 14 valkyries, and 3 falcons It was nuts! I had to land on an interspace base and launch again to reset everything to normal. It was not a rep issue...EVERYTHING in the area was neutral to me except the hessians...even the LWB was neutral. The police wouldn't help the hessians to what gives?
Like I said though, it only happened once...but 14 valkyries!! wow that's a tough fight even in a sabre.

Yeah, that the one that keeps happening to me. Its not a rep thing, its teh same police/army or faction on one side of the trade jump and the other when it happens.

Just for some reason everything goes nuts. Like your one, even the police help their mortal enemies and pirates to attack me!!

It does fix it when you re-load the autosave, sometimes, but not all the time unfortunately. I lost a good chunk of game to this bug. Just wouldnt reset.

Definetely hope they patch the retail version up so it doesnt happen.
I have to say I am impressed with the lack of bugs so far though.

I am better now , back in my trusty Barraccuda , heh I used to use this ship religiously in Elite. Awesome mover in a fire-fight

Actually I don't think that's a bug, I think its a planned balancing feature.

I remember like just after playing mission 5, I tried galavanting around the Tau systems and had a similar experience. Everytime I went through a gate or a trade lane, I'd encounter 10 or so criminal ships and have my ass handed to me.

I was messing around in the Tau system because you can get missions there for 9,000+ when the missions in the Bretonia system that were actually suited to my level were around 4000-5000. The point was that if I could wander around Tau with ease, I would have met my next mission requirement in just one or two missions and probably not experience a lot of the game. Actually stations in Tau 29 and 31 wouldn't even offer missions because my level was too low, which was my first clue - besides being killed 20 times - that I shouldn't be messing around in the Tau systems yet.

Now that I've just about reached the last mission playable in the PR demo (I've been playing slowly) I decided to go back to the Tau system. I found that I encountered a lot less ships, or at least it seemed that way. I can distincly remember emerging from a gate or two and not having 10 attackers immediately upon me. I still have much more enemy encounters than in 'normal' areas, but that's to be expected because of the nature of the region.

So though I have no definitive proof, it seems that the game purposely ups the enemy encounter rate to keep you from messing in 'high-level' systems too soon as a balancing feature. Not realistic, but after all it is a game not a simulation.

During testing I experiemented with this to the "nth" degree. I discovered that depending on the repuation you have with a faction, even one...yes one single misplaced shot at a trade route ring, base, planet docking ring, jump gate, or another ship you didn't plan on hitting will tip the balance to everything becoming instantly hostile.

I have taken not to do too much fighting aroound items I may use in the future or factions that are inherently nuetral.

ONE shot, you heard me right and in the heat of an intense battle I simply don't believe you can account for every single shot. No one is that good.