When I look at the in-game "How do I get Badges?" tab it clearly says: "A badge is NOT awarded for disabling/hacking/raiding ships of much lower rank (less than 40% of your rank),"

Now I am currently Rank 121, so 40% of 121 = 48.4.
So I should get badges whenever I hit someone who is over level 48 or 49, right?

Similarly, someone who is Rank 339 (40% of 339 = 135.6) should not get a badge for hitting me until I reach Rank 136 or so, right?

However it seems the game is working on different rules to what is stated because I am not getting badges when I hit alerted peeps who are quite a fair bit higher than the 40% mark - yet the Rank 339 peep says he got a badge from hitting me when I am below his 40% mark.

It all seems very strange - what rules is the game actually programmed to follow does anyone know?

It's 121 -48.4, so it's people above rank 73 who you can get badges off.

In other words, it's your rank x 0.6 to work out the badge limits.

Hmm I see, although that doesn't explain how the higher level guy managed to get a badge.

Has anyone suggested to Dan that he needs to correct the in-game text to make it accurate?

How do you know he got a badge?

Yeah, I thought it was if they're less than 60% of your rank.

Well he posted a note on my Comm saying it was just a badge hit (and I am assuming that I wouldn't have shown up on his battle comm if I wasn't within his badge range - and at the time he hit me I had only hit maybe 2 people for badges myself in the last 24 hours, and fairly sure neither of them were in his legion to alert me).

I was figuring that was maybe some sort of fixed rank banding was applied in addition to the % rank difference?

Doesn't really matter I guess - I got the main answer it seems, which is that the in-game text is wrong and needs to be corrected to say "less than 60% of your rank".

He's lying to you, then. Obviously you hit someone in his Legion, they alerted you, then he acted upon it and tried to play it off as a badge hit. A rather weak lie, too.

it is 40% both ways the close 40 % but still 40%

the math doesn't work if it's the same amount both directions... notice that the upper level player can reach down further than the lower level player can reach up...

it's simple math...
0.6 = 3/5
1.4 = 7/5
UpperLevel * 3/5 = LowerLevel
LowerLevel * 5/3 = UpperLevel

LowerLevel * 7/5 ≠ UpperLevel
7/5 ≠ 5/3
5/3 = 1.66666

It's not 40% both ways. It's 40% lower, not higher.

Yes simple math anyone you can find on your battle tab you get a badge from that's 40% both ways just as lone.lycan said as for getting badges from someone higher then that i don't know below it you don't. Yes the higher lvl player can hit people that don't see him in there battle tab and get a badge from them.