I've just logged off for a few hours and then logged in again to find my cities and ships destroyed. An attack by the Syndicate occurred on my empire Vicerant over the course of several hours all while my empire was offline and had the noncombatant status. This was well after the 15 minute period and my empire should have had offline protection. For whatever reason, Syndicate was able to attack my empire either way. I'm unable to provide much details because I wasn't there for it. Perhaps Syndicate can elaborate what happened on their end. I can only provide logs to prove that the attacks occurred over the course of roughly 2 hours.
EDIT: After a quick search through the Hazeron Discord I've noticed Vooker asking if it's possible to manually attack targets that are in a noncombatant state. Considering what happened I think this may be true. Can anyone confirm this? Are noncombatant empires safe from attack-orders/crew but not safe from players?
EDIT 2: I've just noticed this message on the Discord by Drog007: "TikTikTik took a planet/city from me while I was offline... but noncombatant does seem to be working to allow his people in/near my cities to kill people while I'm online but not for them to defend against him." In my case TikTikTik was also the one that attacked me while I was offline. It seems I'm not the only one that has encountered this issue. This also seems to suggest that noncombatant only works for NPCs but not for players.
EDIT: After a quick search through the Hazeron Discord I've noticed Vooker asking if it's possible to manually attack targets that are in a noncombatant state. Considering what happened I think this may be true. Can anyone confirm this? Are noncombatant empires safe from attack-orders/crew but not safe from players?
EDIT 2: I've just noticed this message on the Discord by Drog007: "TikTikTik took a planet/city from me while I was offline... but noncombatant does seem to be working to allow his people in/near my cities to kill people while I'm online but not for them to defend against him." In my case TikTikTik was also the one that attacked me while I was offline. It seems I'm not the only one that has encountered this issue. This also seems to suggest that noncombatant only works for NPCs but not for players.