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

[Snakebite]

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.

Good post +1 rep from me.

I've had the exact same experience several times now, between the dumb cops and the sheer lack of any real (human) pirates to hunt down the bounty hunting experience is nowhere what it should be.
In real life blue-on-blue incidents happen, as the OP says there should be more than a 1 shot threshold for becoming wanted.

 

[Oddball_E8]

" 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 !

Yeah, it's kinda like a thief only stealing from other thiefs... He's still a thief.

 

[Jay8ch]

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.

It's easy to sell stolen goods in an anarchy system with a small platform with a black market. They don't scan you.

 

[PhanttoM]

I can't speak for anyone else obviously - But whenever this happens to me, I go on a minor rage-rant over my own lack of awareness.

In my own case when flying fighters, friendly fire only ever happens when I get tunnel vision and don't pay enough attention to my surroundings.

• I should have had better situational awareness by checking the radar more frequently
• I should have listened for the audible sound of the police ship's engines that tell are screaming: "I'm flying close to you"
• I should have had better trigger discipline

Right now I'm flying an Imperial Clipper, so my two turrets have a far bigger chance of causing friendly fire, simply because I have too little control over them.

 

[allama699]

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.

Hi Katkon,

It's all opinion. And in my humble one, it's something that should be looked at.

I would never want to contribute to a game that was too easy. I love a challenge. This mechanic seems unfair. Everything I've done up to the stray shot was considered, and thought out. Totally within the rules(*) I'd laid out for myself.


(*)
My Rules for today.

1: Kill ships with Bounties(Wanted).
2: Pick up cargo(Only in Anarchy systems)
3: Don't kill clean or Security ships.

 

[Par'Gellen]

I agree 10 billion percent! One stray shot caused by the idiot NPC AI flying in front of you should not cause instant Wanted status!

 

[Schlack]

With care these occurances are rare. When it does happen its a simple matter to jump to an outpost and pay the bounty. Watch your fire.

 

[Prodigal]

While I agree that the cops (or even other bounty hunters) being terrible pilots isn't something that we should be penalized for, I can kind of see the argument for it being abused.

My solution: give us the option to pay our bounties/fines remotely. I shouldn't have to waste 5-10 minutes in FSD going back to the nearest station and docking to pay off a 400CR fine. Give us a button somewhere on the right panel to just have the credits removed from our account and let us jump right back into the fight.

Mostly unrelated: I'd love a range column in the contacts menu on the left panel. Would make deciding who to go after when bounty hunting a bit more fluid.

 

[ste]

Accidentally shooting friendly.
Happens once in a while, not very often.
No big deal even when it does.
Screams of gamebreaking.
Screams for frontier to fix it so none of your actions have consequences.

Seems reasonable :

 

[gamecat]

No fix needed it's called turning off reporting crimes in your ship preferences....sheesh.

 

[palang81984]

This is the entire reason why I no longer use multi-cannons, which I bet you are using. There is always a security eagle zipping around seemingly intent on threading the needle between me and the prey im tailing. I'm talking less than 200m from the thrusters of my target, and an eagle zips by out of no where trying to show off or something! I've gotten so mad I've actually decided to kill the stupid security agent on a few occasions, and bear the extra fine for the satisfaction.... Happiest fine I ever paid!

Switching to Cannons for hull destruction solved this problem for me. There is just far less of a chance that they will be passing the instant I'm firing my single shots. Also I don't have to worry so much about background collateral damage, which is an issue when you are fighting in extraction points or other multi-ship combat scenarios. I find Cannons to be better anyway... I LOVE my C2 gimballed cannons. I will admit however, that there is nothing quite like screaming war cries at your monitor as you unleash a deadly torrent of fully loaded dual C2 multi-cannon fire at the defenseless hull of a ship; the moment you've been waiting for the entire fight.

 

[ElleShaped]

I can't speak for anyone else obviously - But whenever this happens to me, I go on a minor rage-rant over my own lack of awareness.

In my own case when flying fighters, friendly fire only ever happens when I get tunnel vision and don't pay enough attention to my surroundings.

• I should have had better situational awareness by checking the radar more frequently
• I should have listened for the audible sound of the police ship's engines that tell are screaming: "I'm flying close to you"
• I should have had better trigger discipline

Right now I'm flying an Imperial Clipper, so my two turrets have a far bigger chance of causing friendly fire, simply because I have too little control over them.

This is how I look at it as well.

There are cues to tell you someone is approaching from behind. The radar shows both range and direction, there are audio cues, and if they are attacking your target, you can see their fire crossing from behind you to in front of you. You know they are there.

If you do not notice, and if you do not have the trigger discipline to avoid hitting them, this is not a weakness in the AI, and it is not a weakness in the system.

It is a weakness in the fighter, one that can be improved by practise, awareness, and precision.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

That mechanic was changed recently. Not sure exactly how it works, but sometimes I can fire a couple shots at a Sidewinder and get the bounty even though I wasn't the last shot, or spend what I feel is a great deal of time and energy on an Anaconda and still not get the bounty--Though there are plenty of times when I do get the bounties on the Anacondas. Maybe the bounty goes to whomever does the most damage?

There is a grace period of something like ten seconds after you shoot a ship, during which you will get the bounty if it dies to NPC fire or to collision.

 

[ste]

That mechanic was changed recently. Not sure exactly how it works, but sometimes I can fire a couple shots at a Sidewinder and get the bounty even though I wasn't the last shot, or spend what I feel is a great deal of time and energy on an Anaconda and still not get the bounty--Though there are plenty of times when I do get the bounties on the Anacondas. Maybe the bounty goes to whomever does the most damage?

You get like 10 seconds to get a hit before he dies to still be awarded the kill, another nerf requested from the community. Obviously this only works against NPCs because its ok to rip them off cos they have no feelings.

Soon I imagine everyone who takes part in a kill will be rewarded for the kill as thats the next demand, after being able to shoot at friendlys with no consequence fix, and maybe the flying without insurance no consequence fix judging by some of the threads Ive read lately.

Hopefully theres still some 'game' left for the rest of us when everyones done requesting all consequence removed

 

[Tubit]

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.

In your scenario, you never accidentally hit the space police, so what you're saying is that you want a delay on authority response when it comes to assaulting an entity? In that case I have to disagree, that isn't a good solution to the problem. The solution would be to not to steal from your bounty target. Just because there's a bounty on them doesn't legitimize stealing from them, and in this case you are deserving your wanted status. When it comes to space police being protective of wanted people just because they're in their own faction, well... That is sort of realistic, isn't it... That doesn't really bother me. I just carry bait and get those guys to shoot at me first. Then there's nothing the cops can do.

In my opinion, that delay you're suggesting sounds like a potentially worse idea, because it could possibly be exploited.

 

[Uk_Jay]

I was bounty hunting but have stopped due to combat broke .Killing pirate fed gets clipped ( i am wanted ) great, Fed clips me its ok. Random shoot enemy with wanted tag fed shoots me , thing is i was even getting red ships show up and they was not wanted and such so i supercruise away a bit go back in all is well again very broken needs fixing.And it has been same thing since beta. Another thing turrets lolz put a few on my clipper to try them out my god feds got shot instant every battle so they went thought id try cannons same thing so then beam weapons turret lolz killed a fed was not even looking at him so i am back to pulse and multi cannons.But i have gave up on bounty hunting just doing trading at mo and that is getting old fast.Was wondering also what is orca good for.

 

[schuesseled]

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

freelancer

And they had the right idea, shoot at a cop, they give you a stern telling off, ignore the cop and they blast you outta the sky. I don't even care about getting fined, fine fine me. But can we stop with the immediate wanted and try to kill me crap, just levy the fine for the first few shots in a given amount of time, after that come at me.

 

[Tubit]

I was bounty hunting but have stopped due to combat broke .Killing pirate fed gets clipped ( i am wanted ) great, Fed clips me its ok. Random shoot enemy with wanted tag fed shoots me , thing is i was even getting red ships show up and they was not wanted and such so i supercruise away a bit go back in all is well again very broken needs fixing.And it has been same thing since beta. Another thing turrets lolz put a few on my clipper to try them out my god feds got shot instant every battle so they went thought id try cannons same thing so then beam weapons turret lolz killed a fed was not even looking at him so i am back to pulse and multi cannons.But i have gave up on bounty hunting just doing trading at mo and that is getting old fast.Was wondering also what is orca good for.

I only bounty hunt, and it's not that bad. Even with multicannons You just need to learn to be careful. Hitting the police or someone innocent doesn't happen often. Give it a few more tries and think of it as a part of the challenge.

 

[schuesseled]

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?

People will no doubt try to convince you this is your fault somehow.

The last time I 'accidentally' shot someone was the beginning of a tough fight with a federal dropship. I decided to stick it out, killed that goit, incidentally earning a murder charge by the same faction that gave me the kill order, and then ran away from said faction's secuirty ships before my goose was thoroughly cooked. Turn's out shooting him with my lasers as he fired a barrage of grapeshot at me was considered a criminal act, I guess I should have waited that split second.

 

[ElleShaped]

People will no doubt try to convince you this is your fault somehow.

Because it is. You are piloting an incredibly expensive piece of technology at incredibly high speeds through a minefield with other ships and objects littering the space you are in.

It is your -responsibility- as a pilot to be aware of what is around you.

Hell, they even broke the laws of physics in the game to give you MORE indication of what is happening around you by letting you hear the guns and the engines of ships that are behind or close to you, with directional audio to tell you from where they are coming. They also gave you a 360 degree radar that shows distance and direction of all objects within more than twice your weapons range.

If you cannot see this ship approaching using these tools, YOU AREN'T PAYING ATTENTION. This is not their fault. You have plenty of tools to know they are there; getting tunnelvision -is most certainly your fault-.

 

[ScottGust]

Idk, i mean in reality if u shot a cop once wouldnt they retaliate?
I think the answer may be to hav fewer police at least in sparsely populated systems...being scanned 10 times in 3 min can get annoying also.