IMO, the protection of towns should extend to the immediate area they surround. If you kill someone in an encounter with marauders and NCR patrol, you should still take an NCR rep hit. Likewise, in the boneyard, I can't tell you how many times i've killed people in plain sight of the regulators, only for them to basically congratulate me on the kill and then try to steal the loot themselves. am i wrong in thinking the regulators by FO lore should be shooting me and helping my victims, not waiting to steal my loot?
This makes sense.
Currently only VC patrols and caravans shoot an attacker when the victim is a VC citizen.
It makes no difference whether or not the attacker is a VC citizen too.
Something like the above should extend to a player's protection status with the town.
If you lost it, an attacker should be able to shoot you in front of patrols and should allow you to keep the loot.
So here maybe a little idea how you could change this in guarded town murderer thing. Maybe it would be cool if really near standing guards could fire before you fire when u try to kill somebody. Like professional Guards that fire as soon as somebody draws a weapon.
I think this is a good suggestion for the inner city of NCR and VC.
It's also a good suggestion for shops.