Not every contact without a transponder has to be aggressive, some non-aggressive ones would be an interesting conundrum to deal with, to demonstrate that not every person who picks, say the Ganymedean life does so by choice, directly or indirectly (Example: They feel they need to support their family, so they're a miner, not a fighter under an aggressive banner).
It'd also open up another potential aspect of your reputation, your aggression, a broad stat about how likely you are to attack if you're not attacked beforehand, with lower scores making any non-aggressive contacts mind their own business and not disturb you, even if they heavily dislike you and would bother you otherwise, and higher scores causing non-combatants to run even if you're liked by them, out of fear of being in your crosshairs next.
#Non-aggressive UIOs
onyx bloom
dense flint
I think this can be incorporated using current mechanics.
https://git.kodera.pl/games/delta-v/-/issues/4480
I could probably just introduce a more random variance in the disposition of people you meet for the first time
opal valley
Yeah, I guess it makes sense that some Ganymedeans might try to avoid contact with unknown miners - they are "hunted" after all, and in the real world most hunted people flee and a minority are warriors in most cases. So there could be some contacts that will "notice" you at a certain range (unless you are Ganymede-friendly) and then always flee silently, but have special dialog paths if you talk to them, based on disposition.
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For that matter, there's no reason some regular miners wouldn't act in a similar way after getting jumped by ganymedes or bully-type miners a few times. So "shy miners" could have unique dialog paths that must be initiated with a hail while they retreat as well.
Shy miners would stop running away and might even hail you if you got a very good miner rep.