This article is about what causes you to become criminally flagged towards other players and who has permission to do what after aggression has been initiated. A different article handles on the stealing from containers or wrecks owned by others and the effect it has on the parties involved. You can read that article here.
The rules for aggression flagging only take place in Empire Space, or in solar systems with security level of 0.0 or above. Solar systems in deep space, or systems that have -0.0 or less security value are considered lawless and any actions of players will not make them affected by the aggression flagging system.
You can be criminally flagged towards a faction, corporation or a character (at the moment, faction flagging only occurs towards NPCs). You may attack anyone who is criminally flagged towards you without having to fear a loss of security status, or police interference. [The pilot you attack, however, does have the right to respond in kind. If the pilot responds, he will be affected by a different type of aggression timer that prevents docking or jumping for up to 1 minute after the last offensive act.]
If a character becomes criminally flagged in the way discussed before, the flag stays active for at least 15 minutes after the criminal activity. The timer does not expire after jumping between solar systems. If the player commits another criminal act while the flag is active, the timer restarts.
There are three possible ways for a player to get aggression flagged in EVE
These are: attacking, aiding and stealing.
- Attacking = a player who initiates combat against another player or the player’s property (activating offensive modules or by using drones)
- Aiding = a player who activates a beneficial module on another player (activating aiding modules or commanding drones that have aiding purposes)
- Stealing = a player who takes items from a container/wreck belonging to another player (covered in this article here)
The types of scenarios you may encounter:
- Attacking an innocent
- Aiding a player who is aggression flagged towards everyone
- Aiding an outlaw (player with sec status of -5.0 or less)
- Attacking an outlaw who is a member of a player corporation
- Aiding a player who’s corporation is at war
- Aiding a player who’s aggression flagged towards a corporation
- Aiding a player who attacks an outlaw
- Gang complications
Attacking an innocent
Player A attacks Player B who is considered innocent towards Player A = Player A gets aggression flagged towards everyone.
Aiding a player who is aggression flagged towards everyone
Player A aids Player B who is aggression flagged towards everyone = Player A gets aggression flagged towards everyone.
Aiding an outlaw
Player A aids Player B who has security status of -5.0 or lower = Player A gets aggression flagged towards everyone.
Attacking an outlaw who is a member of a player corporation
Player A attacks Player B who has security status of -5.0 or lower = Player A gets aggression flagged to Player B's corporation.
Aiding a player who’s corporation is at war
Player A aids Player B who's corporation is at war with another corporation = Player A gets aggression flagged towards all players that are related in warfare to Player B.
Aiding a player who’s aggression flagged towards a corporation
Player A aids Player B who is aggression flagged towards a corporation = Player A gets aggression flagged towards the corporation.
Aiding a player who attacks an outlaw
Player A aids Player B who has initiated aggression towards Player C, who has security status of -5.0 or lower = Player A gets aggression flagged towards Player C.
Gang aggression
When a character joins a gang where a pilot is member of a corporation A that is at war with corporation B, the character in the gang is considered to be aiding those corporation A, and may be freely attacked by the opposing corporation B. Note that the character is not a part of the war per-se, as the character can not freely attack members of corporation B, but the character can be attacked by members of corporation B without consequence. Because of this gang-corporation-war feature, there is a confirmation message when joining a gang that has a member at war with another corporation, informing you of the consequences of joining the gang.
Cargo containers and wrecks are considered valid property just like drones and ships. If you damage a container/wreck, you are initiating aggression on its owner and should be ready for a security hit and Concord intervention. This is also true if you attack a gangmember's cargo container or wreck. Being in a gang does not allow you to destroy his container/wreck or his ship.