As much as I like your ideas, history has proven players tend to abuse or ignore such systems in games.

Examples:

ArcheAge - This game has a community run law and order system with the ability to become a criminal and get gaoled for a period of time. The issue with this system... players tend to simply... ignore it. Few people actually enjoys sitting in a cell for hours on end roleplaying being a prisoner, it's boring. nd the few times we get the incentive to do so (say if we decide to play a Reddick game), it's usually because we are already bored or under the influence of something which results in us finding a weird sense of enjoyment out of it.

However if it is a punishment, it instead of acting as a deterrent, it instead represents a goal, it will encourage bad behaviour. People would brag about going to the gaol in game. They know full well they will get their character back. Ultimately it represented a personal achievement, something you don't want. The reason prision works as a deterant in real life is because you deny someone the option to do what they want in their life, you deny them time from everything. Time and life is the ultimate currency, you rob them part of their life for their crimes, that's a punishment. In game, they would simply not play the game and go do other things for that period of time, even make a new character.

Code of Conduct and general Terms and Conditions Clauses:

Players being stripped of items or Permanently Banned is one of those brutal punishments which is very effective yes, but it borders on legality, thing is even though everything in game is technically the property of the game developers when you sign the contract with them, legally in some countries, anything you earn in game or purchase with your money from that game... is yours, irrespective of a contract. Such as in Australia, which is why in some games like League of Legends, if they ban your account, you can claim it to be reactivated if you purchased things from the game with more than X amount of money, or X amount worth of time earned content (I know I know, but there is a loophole there). If you spend more than X amount of money in any video game (I think the figure is like $200+), live in Australia, get your account banned, you have the right to request your account back and they have a legal obligation to reactivate it. And this has happened in more than just LoL, it has happened in a lot of games, there is a lot of stuff out there about it. It's to do with our laws on accreditation and liability claim, or loss to do with investments, contracts or purchases where if said purchase or return is denied us and the amount invested is said to be of a value which is impact on our capacity to look after ourselves a.k.a feed ourselves/have a place to live etc. We are entitled to compensation or reinstatement of a contract, it's one of those laws which never took into account digital content or content made for entertainment. A.K.A Abused loophole.

However it's still under their terms, so it will cost you, like they would make you level a character to 30 and not be reported for the entire time, if you do, legally they have the right to withhold the account, because their contract still stands. This also applies to any content you have had forcibly removed. But such things should be considered....

I want to bring up my little knowledge from a game called Iron Realms.
The game has different organizations etc. which take up a very large role for a character, but it is possible to just leave them and find your own way around the world. This could involve the player becoming a "bandit", attacking other players who are not careful enough. It is acceptable as far as I know, but some organizations write up lists of "wanted" people. The lists are completely player made, for players, to be used by players, because of other players.
It is fun, really, but I have seen it only from the perspective of an alerted citizen. I dont know how fun or convenient it would be for the rogue.

Having something like that in EC could work out nice, and maybe two rogues could band up!

Also, about forcefully removing items and such:
Permanent banning should be an option in the worst of cases, but I dont think taking away items is cool. Maybe just some sort of debuff that makes your character weak, like a "mini-ban"?

Legality isn't the issue here. I mean this player-based. And you are right about the prison aspect, some people may see it as an achievement. To dissuade that you must make it more uncomfortable.

If you already have a player-run law enforcement give them the ability to brand people. Someone who's been branded has a tag on their name telling their crimes and since the crime register is publicly open it lets everyone who cares go and check out in detail what the things are that they have done. One could also mark someone as expulsed or factionless i.e. free kills for anyone, they don't count when you teamkill them. Ruin the game for them the way they went and ruined the game for others.

Of course, that kind of stuff would only be used against the worst repeat offenders who've been told multiple times that they can't do it but did so anyway. But it should be there. Sitting in an ingame jail solves nothing. Make them pay resources or make them join a penal battalion for a while that always gets those jobs assigned to them that are the most meatgrinder-y, preferably with explosive collars that instakill them if they try to run from the battle zone.

The best part is that you can't defend yourself against this in court, if you get griefed that's an ingame matter and nobody can sue. You'll just be a target of both factions after a while if you keep teamkilling and actually playing the game will be impossible for you until you repent for it.

If this all sounds a bit brutal, then you haven't played Space Station 13. Playing Security Team on that station is the most nerve-fraying and exhiliarating experience I ever had in online gaming.

Psyctooth clearly outlines the issue here. It's not that it wouldn't be a cool feature, but it can be easily be abused and if you want a successful triple A title you can't just alienate the people (the vast majority of which won't want this feature except the hardcore players). To add to this as well, there is no way Space Marines or Eldar would turn on each other for any reason in this type of a 4 faction scenario, and in the fluff it's pretty much beyond never except for the minotaur's chapter.

Do you even deep immersion gaming? A game will never reach any sort of relevancy by underestimating their customers. If you want a quality experience then you can't go for the mouthbreathing mass market of soccer moms and 13-year old kids, you NEED to go for the obsessive core gamers, and believe me, 40k has this unending habit of providing a steady stream of massively obsessive people that paid off at every corner.

A game improves (IN QUALITY) by taking the things the core audience wants and building up on it. NOT by "broadening the appeal", that's what companies like Wargaming or EA have been doing for years (and have been trumpeting as the way to go everywhere, which is why people still try to argue with it). The problem is that WoT is a shit game for scrubs, believe me, I played it for over two years and the endgame content is worthless and nothing but pulling teeth. And what EA have been doing, well, do I even need to say something about that?
Here's a video that describes exactly what I mean.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/7985-Time-To-Get-Paid?hq=1

Fuck the casuals, go with the hardcore crowd. Anything else destroys your game. And as you can see with Dark Souls, ARMA, Minecraft, EVE online (which seems to be a major inspiration for this one) and other games that rely on it's userbase heavily, it always works out. Gamers are willing to go to ridiculous lenghts for the games they play, I want these devs to work with that in mind that to the very end.

Not every game is aimed at hardcore gamers - there's no reason a large base of more casual players can't be your core audience. In fact, there's often a good reason to take that route, as there are a lot more of them. Of course, that doesn't necessarily make it the right move, as that market is also crowded to death.

The main concern I'd have with 'rogues' is that some factions will be plagued by them more than others. The Orks, with their F2P players, are likely to be an easier target for griefing Orks. Chaos also has lore reasons to be at each others' throats. All well and good, wonderful experience, etc.

Except that we're also supposed to be working together to achieve a common goal. And nothing is going to splat that faster than not being able to trust your own side not to kill you. So if Chaos is going to be fighting itself as much as the Space Marines, I sure hope the game is balanced in a way that takes that into account. Or its going to be a miserable playing experience for anyone except rogues and griefers.

As Kanthric just mentioned I think that in a game focused on a multi-faction war as its main stay, griefing your own side would heavily detract from the immersion and gameplay. This isn't some sci-fi or fantasy Sim, its a 40k total war scenario. I couldn't even think of anything more frustrating than an allied player capping you in the back of the head for "shits and giggles" as you are capturing an objective or waiting in an outpost to gather a group. I think its fine to have friendly fire, but it needs to be limited to a certain health threshold, so it can be a factor and effect gameplay but not ruin it for others.

Yeah I see your point. However, I think that's the key thing: isn't this game organized around the whole "working together in an army" sort of aspect? You will of course get griefers, I played many games designed areound that aspect even. But it's just something you'll have to live with. Griefers never last long, especially in the kind of tightly-knit active community that I can see forming right here with how in-depth this game will be getting. Griefers are an annoying fact of life, like cancer. And like cancer, you must... remove them, surgically. A griefer will always get the first shot by virtue of simply being a backstabber, but afterwards he'll be known. List his name and make him a red flag and soon he'll be nothing but cannon fodder. Put an XP or resources bounty out on his head and watch how he gets swarmed as soon as he spawns.

Make a self-cleaning system, you know? That's the only way this sort of thing works.

Or don't design the game around that concept in the first place.

If friendly fire is incidental, as a way of discouraging carpet bombing a target while your forces are assaulting it (ie, reducing the ability of AoE to dominate the battlefield in all circumstances), then you can attach punishment to it via the gameplay system.

Accidentally shoot or kill a friendly? Okay, **** happens. Repeatedly firing on friendlies without shooting enemies in between, or causing (x) amounts of friendly fire damage in (y) amount of time, or killing too many friendlies in (z) amount of time can trigger an escalating penalty system. Start with a warning, then go to temporary bans or removing the ability for that player to cause damage temporarily, etc.

Allowing a bounty system, official or otherwise, is just as likely to be misused by griefers as it is to eliminate them.

If it looks like causing a headache, allow friendly fire to reduce health to 1, but prevent it from causing kills - not much point in griefing in the back lines if you can't kill things.

Put it this way, if I'm trying to organise a strike force to attack opponents, I don't want to be having to deal with the aggro of a griefing unit in our back lines screwing up our reinforcements or tying up players in yelling in chat or organising in-game hit squads. It's a distraction we don't need, and that is only lore compliant for half of the races in-game.

It makes sense for many races that friendly fire not being a bad thing, but a important thing. A Space Marine killing a battle brother makes sense because he might be falling into chaos or he thought that other Marine had signs of corruptions in it, that might be because he saw a Chaos Marine and didn't kill, talk to it or made some kind of truce between them, same goes with Xenos.

Chaos has tons of reasons for kill amongs them, just Khorne itself has not much trouble with it. The odd thing is the truce between different gods worshipers.

Eldar are a odd case... i don't know much about eldar, maybe falling into Dark Eldar but that might not make sense lorewise

Orks XD , nothing to say more than : "I iz da biggest, ‘ardest boss in all da ‘Spanse!"