Core Design

In 1.7 Alpha 2 I've made several changes to how stations react to attack:

In general, stations should react consistently when (a) they are attacked, (b) one of their turrets is attacked or destroyed, (c) one of their guards is destroyed. If a guard is attacked, that guard will respond, but it won't cause a station-wide response (otherwise big battles would be triggered accidentally).
When any of the conditions above happen, the station sends out its docked guards to attack, and also sets its state to "angry" so that it uses its weapons at maximum range.
Patrolling ships are also alerted, but they only attack the target if they are within 80 light-seconds of the target. Otherwise, they continue on their patrol.
When guards attack a target, they are allowed to get up to 120 light-seconds away from their base, which allows them to deal with long-range snipers.
We check the visibility of the attacker before sending out guards. If the attacker cannot be seen (due to stealth tech) then we don't send out an attack. However, a ship firing its weapons is not stealthy (since the shots can be seen).
If an auton or wingman attacks, the station decides whether to go after the attacker or the order-giver. The station cannot go after a stealthy/unseen order-giver. If one or the other is more than twice as close, then the station will attack that one. Otherwise, the station will attack the order giver 60% of the time.

See Also