For the love of god, dev's please read this :-)

[allama699]

Let me set the scene.

I'm a Bounty hunter in a space sim. I fly around hunting people who are wanted and collecting bounties. On occasion, picking up their dropped cargo. Helping the Security Services.

I have to assume that in this simulated universe, a pilot needs to be of a minimum IQ.

I exit supercruise and enter a zone with 5-6 NPC characters. 2 are wanted. The others are either clean or security.

I target a wanted ship and scan for cargo. He's carrying 10 Paladium's. Happy days. It's gonna be a good kill.

I now start to knock his shields down, patiently waiting for them to fail so i can launch my cargo hatch limpets. I fire a limpet, keep on his tail waiting for success. I get the blue success message, and Paladium starts to spew from his hold.

Now its time for him to die. I start to fire all guns. All has gone well.

In a flash, and out of knowhere, a highly trained Security ship flies staight through the tiny gap between me and my prey. Wallop!! I am fined. Now all security are firing at me.

Goodbye Paladium(100k Credits)

Back to space station to pay the 400 credit fine.

DEV's. You must address this. At least have a threshold of 1-2 shots before we are actually seen as Wanted. Up to you how to fix this. It's almost a game killer for me.

What are the opinions of the other bounty hunters. I'm sure they must have encountered this.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

 

[baael]

+1

pretty annoying, but more annoying is when you become hostile without "wanted" status (every single time for me now - and I am neutral)

 

[Fenris Wolf]

For the love of god

Which one?

Perhaps you're asking the wrong one

Back to the question... Sure I read somewhere that the Devs would be looking in to this in the new year...

 

[Riker13]

Yes I have experienced this also and it is a pain in the bum to be sure, im sure the devs will do something to rectify

 

[Druid]

agree...

 

[FaolGlas]

My opinion is I encounter it rarely, I am just very careful with my shots, looking to see where the other ships are. Which makes sense, rather than firing continuously with impunity. And I also duck in front of other NPC ships to get the kill, just as they do to me, so seems fair enough that they might do the same. Not that hard to finish up the kill and exit for a safe station. With gimbals, if it wasn't for minding my fire, combat would be too straightfoward anyhow

 

[CMDR Arni Sigurdsson]

" I'm a Bounty hunter in a space sim. I fly around hunting people who are wanted and collecting bounties. On occasion, picking up their dropped cargo "
In my books you are a Pirate !

 

[GJ51]

The worst is when you get attacked and you're just about to annihilate your attacker and a Fed drops into your line of fire and you get fined for him running in front of your shot.

 

[Squashie]

Or what other games do and have the NPC give you a warning if you hit them once or twice.

 

[Ravenov]

I wouldn't mind so much if the police had to follow the same rules ... i'm constantly getting hit by the feds while shooting things but i can not retaliate in kind

 

[thewzdoc]

Did you get your kill before SCing out?

The cargo was "stolen" so....you didn't really lose anything.

Will be great when FD introduces salvage to the game.

 

[Luponator]

Spot on. A threshold of a few shots (and shots, not damage inflicted) depending on your reputation with the relevant faction before being wanted would be neat. The outlined scenario happened to me a few times too, exactly like that, and before the usual 'watch your fire discipline' argument gets brought up- OP's right. A Fed flying into a beam laser's an AI issue, not a commander being trigger happy.

 

[thewzdoc]

I wouldn't mind so much if the police had to follow the same rules ... i'm constantly getting hit by the feds while shooting things but i can not retaliate in kind

This....I don't mind being call to the carpet for my downrange fire but everyone (NPC's too) should be held to the same account.

 

[allama699]

I'm glad to hear that this is being looked at. If it means grinding a bit of rep with the local security, i'd be happy with that.

Answering a couple of you.

Yes picking up dropped cargo from wanted targets does sort of make me a pirate. More of a Jack Sparrow though lol. Salvage as stated by another poster would be a great idea. Currently i just hang around in Anarchy systems.

Yes I did kill the target. But had to leave the fine loot behind.

Obviously there are players who seem to have far better flying abilities than me. Ducking an weaving around the lasers and NPC ships. Almost dancing. I must be great to be as good ass you . I will strive to one day, be half as good as you my kind sir.

Thanks all.

Andy(Friendly, Bounty hunting Pirate/Security pot shot taker/ payer of small fines)

 

[Katkon]

I would actually suggest this is a brilliant mechanic. It's as if they were trying to prevent you from picking up stolen cargo. They saw you fire the limpet and didn't want to wait for you to actually pick up the cargo as they "knew" you intended to commit a crime. So they talked one of the lads to intercept by flying into your field of fire, which gave them all the cause in the world to open fire. You have to admit that'd be darned clever AI!

In all seriousness - I think the mechanic is absolutely fine as is, and hope they don't turn this into even more of an easy mode by either allowing us players to get away with stray shots on innocent targets or having the NPCs focus more on staying out of our line of fire than engaging their target. I really do hope this isn't changed.

 

[Geers]

I would actually suggest this is a brilliant mechanic. It's as if they were trying to prevent you from picking up stolen cargo. They saw you fire the limpet and didn't want to wait for you to actually pick up the cargo as they "knew" you intended to commit a crime. So they talked one of the lads to intercept by flying into your field of fire, which gave them all the cause in the world to open fire. You have to admit that'd be darned clever AI!

In all seriousness - I think the mechanic is absolutely fine as is, and hope they don't turn this into even more of an easy mode by either allowing us players to get away with stray shots on innocent targets or having the NPCs focus more on staying out of our line of fire than engaging their target. I really do hope this isn't changed.

I don't think anyone wants to get away with it. They just don't want to be slaughtered over an idiot AI running into a stray bullet/photon.

Making it a 100c fine would solve the problem fine.

 

[Heathy]

again the reason why the security turn hostile without shooting them is because you attacked a ship belonging to the minor faction in the system with the most influence.

if your system has 3 minor factions, the highest one, is tied to the security. they turn hostile but don't attack you.(sometimes they do)

susies cakes < most influence will turn security hostile, they shouldn't attack you but sometimes do.
ben puddings < will turn this minor faction hostile, and not the security
daves pies < ^^ same

it doesn't currently make 'sense' but what does really, basically if you gunna kill susies cakes 'pirates' be prepared to fsd out and back in to reset the security hostility.

i've come to ignore the pirates of the minor faction with the most influence and just kill pirates of the other minor factions.

 

[Tiamat]

At least have a threshold of 1-2 shots before we are actually seen as Wanted. Up to you how to fix this. It's almost a game killer for me.

I understand your point but the threshold you speak of is exploitable. As we currently have a "last shot gets the kill" you would be able to safely murder anybody that is one shot from death to increase your kill count and rep. It isn't a big loophole but it is a loophole as tagging an Elite Anaconda would get you a big rep boost as ships with high combat rankings award more rep than say a novice in a Sidewinder. Now get a gang of people together hunting Elite NPCs (or players) but only firing one or two shots each and you have a consequence-free murderfest which is a major loophole. That is just the two exploits I can think of.

What needs to be in place is a check to see if that one or two hits actually kills the ship and those hits remembered as part of a cooldown. That is going to involve a code change as well as changes to the database structure so it isn't quite the little change many seem to think it is. I think it will get addressed in the new year though after it has been thoroughly thought through.

 

[jamesmay]

Let me set the scene.

I'm a Bounty hunter in a space sim. I fly around hunting people who are wanted and collecting bounties. On occasion, picking up their dropped cargo. Helping the Security Services.

I have to assume that in this simulated universe, a pilot needs to be of a minimum IQ.

I exit supercruise and enter a zone with 5-6 NPC characters. 2 are wanted. The others are either clean or security.

I target a wanted ship and scan for cargo. He's carrying 10 Paladium's. Happy days. It's gonna be a good kill.

I now start to knock his shields down, patiently waiting for them to fail so i can launch my cargo hatch limpets. I fire a limpet, keep on his tail waiting for success. I get the blue success message, and Paladium starts to spew from his hold.

Now its time for him to die. I start to fire all guns. All has gone well.

In a flash, and out of knowhere, a highly trained Security ship flies staight through the tiny gap between me and my prey. Wallop!! I am fined. Now all security are firing at me.

Goodbye Paladium(100k Credits)

Back to space station to pay the 400 credit fine.

DEV's. You must address this. At least have a threshold of 1-2 shots before we are actually seen as Wanted. Up to you how to fix this. It's almost a game killer for me.

What are the opinions of the other bounty hunters. I'm sure they must have encountered this.

Looking forward to reading your thoughts.

Security ships ram me all the time when Im fighting Wanted ships.
And no, they're not engaging me, they're engaging the wanted ship... BUT they love flying STRAIGHT into me, its like they're oblivious to me being there.

 

[joshc]

this literally just happened to me....

I was killing some elite bounty ship, and i had full hp and he was too slow to catch me in my sidewinder...then out of nowhere a security ship in my face and banged into me and i get fine and they kill me?