PMS detected in this thread.
And Im not talking about pepperoni mushrooms and sausage.
"Sinking neutral ships" does sound neutral, no pun intended. But jaxa did then point out a sh3/gwx question. Stock game has a negative default attribute as a penalty. Not to mention now you have a new enemy for 24 hours or some jazz. Glad pablo addressed this. I am aware of no 'mod' that actually changes this to a neutral state, it is therefore the players call to change that, if they are comfortable making the edit for themselves. If the question was how to change this then a different question or "search" would reveal an easy answer and at least a few other threads covering neutrals.
Certainly seems like the modders are more uptight about their files being edited then the players being upset about neutral ships in convoys. And perhaps they have a right to be considering the work done for free. I certainly wouldn't want work I did re-edited then distributed that way. But then again I don't belive that is the point. The question basically was why the punishment in the game, which was answered.