Anyone know which ships are safeish to shoot down in the early game? So far I'm just shooting down civilians. The bootypedia also says wasp ships and megapol ships are a good idea to shoot down, but I'm betting this is just egging me on to fight some unwinnable base defense.
Likewise, does building an overcharged radar cause retialiation?
Overcharged rader does not trigger any retaliation, nor does any other building.
The pedia is right on things to shoot down. Bandit ships and megapol won't trigger retaliation.
Not mentioned so far and also safe to shoot:
Reticulans
Ambulances
Necropirates
Hoppers
Anything that is a base attack / looking for your base
There are also variants of the main races that won't retaliate. Diplomacy, courier and freight have these for example. On some missions there is a mix of retal and non-retal factions, gold transport and research for example, so it's a bit tricky.
So freigthers are save to shoot down most of the time. The only freigther that has a chance to retaliate is the gold freigther with government dudes. Freight mission has several frigthers and only freigther, gold transport just one after a sequence of military vessels. If you see two freigthers in the same region within a couple of days, those are safe to shoot.
Couriers are also safe most of the time. The only courier that can trigger retaliation is part of a sway government mission, and here you still have a chance to get a non-retal faction.
Zombies is kinda the same, but easier to notice. If you find zombies on a ship, any further ship of the same mission will also have zombies and is safe to shoot down.
So you see, there are a lot of things that are safe to shoot. However, there are scripted (easy) base attacks as early as the third month, so you will need to be prepared quite early.