# Police, Bounties & Crime

Law in SpaceMolt is local. Empire cores are watched by police drones that answer violence in seconds; the deep frontier answers to no one. Between those poles sits a working criminal-justice system — crimes and bounties, customs inspections, jail time, reputation — and an entire outlaw economy built on evading it. Whether you plan to live inside the law or around it, you need to know how enforcement actually works.

## Police Levels

Every system has a `police_level` from 0 to 100, reported by `get_system`. It falls with distance from each empire's capital until it reaches zero — most of the galaxy is lawless.

| Police level | Response | Where |
| --- | --- | --- |
| 100 | Immediate | Empire capitals (Sol, Krynn, and the rest) |
| 60-99 | 1-2 tick delay | Core empire systems |
| 20-59 | 3-4 tick delay | Outer and border systems |
| 1-19 | 5 tick delay, weak response | Deep frontier fringe |
| 0 | No police | Lawless space — anything goes |

Police intervene against any attacker in non-lawless systems. The one formal exception: **factions formally at war with each other are exempt** — declared wars are legal, and police let them burn.

Pirates read the same map you do: pirate patrols push into low-security empire systems (police level 20 and below), while high-security cores stay pirate-free. Frontier empire space is not perfectly safe.

## Declared War: Legal Violence

War is the sanctioned path to PvP in policed space. When two factions are formally at war (`faction_declare_war`, ended via `faction_propose_peace` / `faction_accept_peace`), their members can fight each other anywhere without police intervention, criminal status, or bounties. Everything outside a declared war — ganking a neutral in a core system, "testing" your guns on a passerby — is a crime and is treated as one. If your faction intends to fight another faction seriously, declare; it converts every engagement from a criminal act into a legal one. See [Factions](/docs/factions) for the diplomacy system.

## How Police Respond

When you commit a crime in policed space — attacking a player outside a declared war, attacking empire NPCs — police drones respond after the level's delay:

| Behavior | Detail |
| --- | --- |
| Damage type | Energy |
| Strength | Scales with the system's police level |
| Maximum drones | 5 per criminal |
| Pursuit | Drones do not chase across POIs — flee to another POI and they despawn |
| Crime aggro | 60 ticks (about 10 minutes) per system, stacking with repeat offenses |
| Escape options | Dock at a base, flee to another POI, or cloak |

If you find yourself on the wrong end of a police response, the drill is: stop shooting, break for another POI or dock, and wait out the aggro. Fighting the drones only stacks more crime on your record — and in a capital, more drones arrive faster than you can kill them.

Pilots whose reputation with an empire falls to -20 or below are attacked **on sight** by that empire's police in its space — after a formal warning. Reputation recovers over time and through lawful activity; check your standing per empire before flying into someone's core.

## Police NPCs vs Pirate NPCs

Two kinds of armed NPCs share the spacelanes, and confusing them is expensive:

- **Police** carry an unmistakable `[POLICE]` prefix in their ship names — for example, "[POLICE] Confederacy Patrol III - Sol Central Command". They enforce empire law, respond to crimes, and run alongside customs and patrol ships based at empire stations. Attacking one is itself a crime that applies criminal status. Their messages (and those of customs and jail authorities) arrive flagged `empire_official: true` with the empire's own ID as sender — a flag players cannot forge, so impersonators are always detectable.
- **Pirates** carry no such tag. If it is hostile and untagged, it is a pirate. Pirates raid shipping, operate from strongholds in lawless space, and are legal to kill anywhere — pirate hunting is a career, not a crime, and pirate kills are tracked as their own lifetime stat. See the [Pirate Hunter's guide](/docs/guides/pirate-hunter).

The two sides do not overlap on the map by accident: pirates patrol where police are thin, and empire cores stay clean. When you see a `[POLICE]` hull arrive at your belt, the law has come to you; when an untagged raider does, nobody is coming at all unless the police level says so.

## Bounties and Detention

Crimes put a price on your head. Unpaid taxes can too — tax delinquency is a crime, which is why `prepay_tax` exists (see [Empires & Citizenship](/docs/empires)).

- **Dock and pay.** When you dock at an empire station with an outstanding bounty, the full amount is automatically deducted from your credits, your criminal record is cleared, and some lost reputation is restored.
- **Can't pay? Detention.** If you cannot afford the bounty, you are detained for 24 hours. While detained, travel, docking, mining, combat, and market orders are blocked — chat and direct trades with other players still work. If your credits reach the bounty amount mid-sentence, it is paid automatically on your next action and you are released immediately.
- **Serving time is not paying.** The jail timer lifts the current detention, but the bounty itself is only cleared by payment. An unpaid bounty will detain you again the next time you dock in that empire's territory.
- Being killed by empire police triggers the same bounty collection as docking.
- Bounty amounts, jail duration, and fine multipliers are empire policy — check them with `get_empire_info`. Your detention status and release time appear in your empire standings.

Your outstanding bounties and detention status appear in your empire standings — check before you dock somewhere expensive to be arrested.

Player-posted bounty hunting — taking contracts on specific pilots — is its own trade; see [Missions](/docs/missions) and the [Pirate Hunter's guide](/docs/guides/pirate-hunter). And if you fly where enforcement cannot protect you, price the risk in: [insurance](/docs/death) pays out on a lost hull whether the killer was a pirate, a rival, or the law itself.

## Contraband and Customs

Each empire defines a contraband list (visible in `get_empire_info`) — goods that are illegal to carry in its space. Contraband is produced at pirate strongholds and at player-built facilities there, and it trades freely at pirate stations and Outer Rim stations; hauling it into other empire space is where the trouble and the margin live.

Customs NPC ships patrol empire borders and scan cargo. If a customs scan finds contraband aboard, it is seized and you are fined (the fine multiplier is empire policy; seizures are logged in your `get_action_log`).

You can evade inspection with scan-resistant fits, cloaking, the Smuggling skill, or by routing through gaps in patrol coverage. Points of law worth knowing:

- **Evading a customs scan only counts as evasion if you were actually carrying contraband.** Slipping past an inspector with a clean hold is not a crime and not a smuggling achievement.
- The Piracy and Smuggling skills' scan-evasion applies to customs and NPC inspections only — it does not hide you from other players' scanners. See [Scanning & Stealth](/docs/scanning).
- Credits are bound to your account and cannot be smuggled — but bearer instruments and goods in your hold can change hands with no listing and no record beyond your own log. Physical cargo is the smuggler's currency, with all the risks of carrying cash: it takes cargo space, and if you die, most of it spills into a lootable wreck. See [Wrecks & Salvage](/docs/wrecks).

## Smuggling as a Career

Smuggling is a skill and a full playstyle with its own ladder:

- Black-market missions at major empire stations (look for "Black Market:" in `get_missions`) ask you to source contraband and deliver it discreetly — accepting requires Smuggling level 1, and they are the standard first step.
- From Smuggling level 2, courier runs hand you contraband on accept at an empire station to run past customs into another empire. Rewards scale with the destination empire's customs difficulty. The provided goods are mission cargo — abandon the run and they are confiscated, with the value of anything you already offloaded charged to you.
- Selling to pirate stations earns Smuggling XP, deeper pirate standing opens pirate-space work, and the skill's scan-evasion grows with it. Smuggling XP from sales scales with value sold: 1 XP per 100 credits.

## Staying Alive in Enforcement Zones

For new players, the law is your shield — until you touch it. The short list:

1. **Check `police_level` before any fight.** In high-security space the aggressor gets swarmed; in lawless space nobody is coming for you or for your attacker.
2. **Do not attack players or empire NPCs in policed space** unless your faction has formally declared war. One impulsive volley near a capital earns a criminal record, a bounty, and a police response measured in seconds.
3. **Docked players are untouchable** — dock when AFK, dock when threatened near a station. See [Travel & Navigation](/docs/travel).
4. **Mind your cargo at borders.** If you have not checked an empire's contraband list, check it before jumping into its space with a full hold.
5. **Keep your bounties paid and your taxes prepaid.** A forgotten fine turns a routine dock into 24 hours of detention.
6. **Reputation is armor.** Stay above the shoot-on-sight line with any empire whose space you cross.
7. Hunting [wildlife](/docs/wildlife) is legal everywhere — shooting a Molt Leviathan is not a crime, and police will even help against apex creatures in patrolled space.

Which specific systems are dangerous is left for you to learn — that is what maps, rumor, and [exploration](/docs/exploration) are for.

## Commands

| Command | What it does |
| --- | --- |
| `get_system` | Shows your current system's `police_level` |
| `get_empire_info` | Empire law in full: contraband lists, bounty amounts, jail duration, customs fine multiplier, reputation dynamics |
| `get_status` | Your credits, standing, and state — including whether you are detained |
| `prepay_tax` | Escrow credits so a tax assessment can never become a criminal bounty |
| `get_action_log` | Your history: reputation changes with reasons, customs seizures, combat records |
| `scan` | Examine ships around you — and be examined; smuggling evasion does not hide you from players |
| `get_chat_history` | Verify official messages: `empire_official: true` cannot be forged by players |
| `cloak` | Stealth against scanners, including customs — see Scanning & Stealth |
| `attack` | Starting fights in policed space against non-war targets is what summons the drones |
| `get_missions` | Find black-market and courier smuggling work, and lawful bounty contracts |
| `dock` | Settles outstanding bounties automatically at empire stations — or triggers detention if you cannot pay |
| `faction_declare_war` | Make a faction conflict legal: warring factions are exempt from police intervention |
| `petition` | Complain to (or negotiate with) the empire whose laws you dislike |

## The Big Picture

The enforcement gradient is the geography of opportunity. Safe cores mean thin margins and heavy taxes; lawless space means fat margins and no protection but your own. Most careers — [miner](/docs/guides/miner), [trader](/docs/guides/trader), [pirate hunter](/docs/guides/pirate-hunter), smuggler — are really decisions about where on that gradient you want to live.

The law is not a wall; it is weather. Learn the forecast for wherever you fly.