Sad but true, as bounty hunter its quite not playable atm...

[Anzel]

So I spent the weekend trying my hand a bounty hunting. Some of the challenges I faced are as follows:

1.) System Authority vessels sometimes fly right through my line of fire. By sometimes I mean like 80% of the time LOL. After that I get fined and they all start attacking me. Would be nice if you had like x minutes to pay the fine, without docking before you become wanted and they all start attacking.

2.) I got really inconsistent bounties from my marks. Sometimes a Cobra would yield almost 20K and sometimes a Cobra of the same rank (Dangerous, Master, etc.) would yield less that 1K. It would be nice to know ***how much**** the bounty is before risking my tail.

3.) System Authority ships are everywhere. In massive numbers. Even in systems I visited with an "Anarchy" government. Not sure who's paying all of the taxes to fund such an enormous police force but maybe scale these back a bit?

 

[Renso]

So I spent the weekend trying my hand a bounty hunting. Some of the challenges I faced are as follows:

1.) System Authority vessels sometimes fly right through my line of fire. By sometimes I mean like 80% of the time LOL. After that I get fined and they all start attacking me. Would be nice if you had like x minutes to pay the fine, without docking before you become wanted and they all start attacking.

2.) I got really inconsistent bounties from my marks. Sometimes a Cobra would yield almost 20K and sometimes a Cobra of the same rank (Dangerous, Master, etc.) would yield less that 1K. It would be nice to know ***how much**** the bounty is before risking my tail.

3.) System Authority ships are everywhere. In massive numbers. Even in systems I visited with an "Anarchy" government. Not sure who's paying all of the taxes to fund such an enormous police force but maybe scale these back a bit?

To avoid authorities, turn off "report Crimes Against Me"

You can check your prey's bounties before interdicting or attacking by looking under the target menu on the left.

Again... turn off Report Crimes.. and authority ships in Anarchy systems have no jurisdiction, they won't hold anything against you unless you attack one or one belonging to their faction. But you wont accrue a bounty yourself while in an Anarchy system.

 

[AH_ImADot]

So I spent the weekend trying my hand a bounty hunting. Some of the challenges I faced are as follows:

1.) System Authority vessels sometimes fly right through my line of fire. By sometimes I mean like 80% of the time LOL. After that I get fined and they all start attacking me. Would be nice if you had like x minutes to pay the fine, without docking before you become wanted and they all start attacking.

Try un-checking "Report crimes against me". Since I've done that, I rarely see authority ships jumping in my fights. I think when someone shoots at you, the authorities are dispatched to help you because someone committed a crime against you.

 

[TargetLost]

I bought a Type 6 next to my Cobra.
I did 3 or 4 runs with it and than I couldn't bear it anymore and took my Cobra out of the hangar and rushed into the next anarchy system!
~
I have split my actions.
First I do some bounty hunting.
Then I take the Type 6 and go to Lave and Co and earn the Alliance Bounties. Stuck up with rare goods and personal weapon and head to my current home a very small system with 1200 ppl where I try to make a difference since 4 days. In short I couldn't move the influnce there of even 0.1% Simple nothing although the other faction is a pirate faction and I already cleareed the system of 100 of those faction ships. I do missions and I fill up their demands (food) and buy their products.
I bring that products to hightech station and exchange with the things the acriculture system needs. If I still can bear it I make one more trading cycle of the 3 systems else I park and sit in my Cobra again.. or at the moment my sidewinder. Just felt the need to do help the little duriuses again.
~
With nothing I make big money but you see I use everything ED offers me and have my Fun!
~
hint for you try a asteroid cluster. reset the instance a number of time (fly out loop back) till at least 1 enemy shows up. Make sure "Report crimes against me" is off and with some luck you hit an endless pirate spawn chain where you can hunt without haveing to wait and wait and even better hunt ALONE!
However it seems they nerfed this cool thing. It's harder and harder to trigger it and often the chain is broken or only trash ships apear.

 

[Sanderson]

I've made over 6mil credits so far as a bounty hunter. Works good, not anything near trading type of money but, it works. Conflict zones are not bounty hunting, that's why there's a separate section for "combat vouchers".

 

[speighty]

Bounty hunting.

I cant help but wonder at what people expect from this profession. Its a profession that has some ramifications, faction hits being one of them.

Bounty Hunting has always been a profession that is considered less than savoury. Scum of the universe (no offense intended!)


Your basically someone who will kill anyone you choose if they have a bounty) for money.

How can people expect that this will NOT have an impact in the game is beyond me...

There has been enough threads to point out some very important points when choosing this as a profession.

1. If faction is important to you, then don't choose this as a profession unless your prepared to workout the relationship of the various factions. You CANNOT kill everyone and not upset someone somewhere. They will retaliate. This is a universal truth, just think about it.

2. You cannot shoot anyone else apart from your target and not expect consequences. Even a single projectile is enough. Think how your local police would react. Its SUPPOSED to be realistic. Deal with it, its part of the game. It requires some skill.

3. People (NPC's) get in your line of fire. Deal with it, its realistic, you have radar, you can see it. Its purely down to skill. Not everyone has enough of it.

4. If you get fines for hitting NPC's, you CAN pay these off easily at outposts.


I actually really like the way that faction hits are taken for this profession. If I stayed in one area too long, I became unfriendly with the local crooks quite quickly .... that seems realistic. If the local police are allied with the local crooks, then they would also be rather unfriendly. This seems reasonable to me.

Certainly there are a few tweaks that are needed, but I agree with Ydiss in that the other professions are probably more urgent.

 

[Norwyn]

Bounty hunting not viable? past 2 days I've made 1mil in 3-4 hours with pimped viper just perfect for my play style... and I have not died once.

My advice would be, if you are actually bounty hunting, don't go to battlefields, there you will be more like mercenary, and those get killed more easily as there might be 5-10 at your tail. If you are bounty hunter, you should stick to USS, nav beacon, pulling people from SC or extraction sites IMO. Plenty of criminals in those destinations to hunt.

 

[Cmdr_Arri]

Bounty hunting is a decent profession. I've noticed that in Anarchy systems, you get bounties from ALL factions. Meaning you have to travel quite far to turn in bounty vouchers if you're not near a faction's system. LAVE looks to be a great area location since all factions reside in that area. I only bounty hunt in Federation systems (since everything around me is Federation). Nets me higher local bounties until I can make my way to LAVE.

If you're not getting enough in bounties, check out other systems. The last system I was in was very low bounties. The system I just moved to yesterday is netting me excellent bounties. Enough that I've already maxed out my Eagle and am eyeballing the Cobra.

 

[Chob]

If i'm bounty hunting i can make up 300-700k cr/h without KW scanner. I personally don't like the KW scanner, especially that i'm working only for the Empire and sometimes for the Alliance, but the Federation is after me.
The way i'm bounty hunting though is boring after a while. I want better and more missions please!

 

[Soulside Journey]

If you want credits, you should trade. Yes, it's quite unbalanced currently.

Hopefully things become a little more balanced and fleshed out as content is added. Currently there just isn't much to do combat wise in elite.

Combat shouldn't pay as much as trading imo. Trading should be the standard "occupation". If bounty hunting would suddenly yield millions, everyone would want to do it. Then there aren't enough targets for Pirates, and thus not enough targets for bounty hunters.

Bounty hunting should be more of a "Cowboy Bebop" lifestyle, where freedom comes at a price.

 

[Jer the Stampede]

Targetting the FSD or Powerplant isn't to disable the ship bounty hunting it's to kill it quick imho, the hull can still be over 60% but once the FSD is down target it a couple more shots and it's KA-BOOM!!!

 

[stormreacher]

Good bounty can be found in resource collection sites, especially in systems which have security I suggest finding a federation system with one of these and going hunting there, ships can't jump as quickly as they'll be mass locked by the asteroid field and you can find a lot of wanted cobras for 10-20k a piece. You can male a good 60k in about half an hour or less depending on your combat skills

 

[Khavi]

Forget Interdicting anything less than a COMPETENT VIPER for decent bounties and find yourself an ANARCHY system. EVERYTHING in the system will show CLEAN but just Interdict them, KWS them and then look at the CONTACTS panel to see the bounty amount. Don't worry if you don't get the BLUE BOUNTY MESSAGE when they die, you still get the amount credited.

Easy to make 250+ an hour and no POLICE to get in the way.

Yep, head to an anarchy system if you really want to do some serious bounty hunting. If you however like staying in a more populated system try to find with with ringed planets and extraction points. Head to the extraction points and pull the pirates out of warp near them.

 

[Tenshi]

First off once you are on your feet and can happily kill various npc pirates stop hunting at nav beacons. This will only do damage to your reputation and you will loose money hand over fist due to npc takings the killing blows. Combat zones are only worth while if you have a mission to kill X number of warzone ships.

I have been doing the Durius warzone and due to the lack of Empire supported missions there I have lost over 1 million credits in a day due to two losses on ships and the mission to donate weapons. I have enough to carry on in this fight but I have my cut off points when to cut my losses and move on out.

I found that it is easier to hunt npc bounties in Anarchy systems in the asteroid belts, the systems without any stations or npc police to mess things up. The bounties are usually higher as well and I can easily make a few 100k in a hour or so with minimal repairs. Also this will not ruin your reputation with any faction either.

Also when you get the shields down on ships look for their weak spot. They all have them targeting their FSD or Drive will stop them from running away. Also if you destroy the FSD it can go critical and end the fight quicker same as the power plant.

 

[SilentMage]

I dunno... I just finished a bounty run where I made about 200k in 15 minutes, though only 170k of it could be claimed in Federation space. I also had to clear a tiny bounty on my head after one of my bullets grazed a Federation security vessal (ugh), but that's another (quite repeated) story.

In other words, bounty hunting is quite viable, and if you're quick with the kills and are a bit lucky, you can make a tidy sum. Not as much as rare trading, but that's to be expected IMO.

Yep, head to an anarchy system if you really want to do some serious bounty hunting. If you however like staying in a more populated system try to find with with ringed planets and extraction points. Head to the extraction points and pull the pirates out of warp near them.

What he said. I personally get a real thrill from hunting in Anarchy space, where nearly everyone seems innocent... until you scan them and realize the Cobra that's deploying hardpoints has a 40k bounty on their head. Also, don't forget that targeting haulers and similar ships in Anarchy space can reward you with rare, illegal goods - I've gotten rare artworks and artifacts, personal weapons and more from those kills, where a bulk sale at the nearest Anarchy base could potentially net you tens of thousands.

Bounty hunting in non-Anarchy space is viable... but it basically invalidates the KWS on those with Clean records in said space, as shooting Clean folks in Federation space, for example, immediately places a bounty on you.

 

[Jean Leffite]

a lot of the suggestions and ideas in this thread are very low level early game type stuff. "go to anarchy systems and find a resource site!" sounds great until you realize that now the pirate group you should be focusing on to get those juicy 20k bounties also have system authority vessels on their side. so you decide to sit in supercruise and interdict the big guys. well if you wait to long the sidewinder or eagle NPC worth nothing will interdict you essentially resetting the instance and forcing you to sit around waiting some more.

oh, you say go find a good independent or faction system and bounty hunt there. for starters what is your definition of good? i've done the kill endless cobra's in a resource site but the endgame there is an A'd out viper/cobra. "but i jumped in one and saw wanted anacondas!" this happens rarely, certainly not often enough to farm or be worth mentioning. i kept seeing people say that so i spent a good 5+ hours looking for these mythical lands. i tried everything.. high pop anarchy, high pop faction with a 25%+ pirate group, faction systems with anarchy gov, looking for these same systems but with at least medium and pref low security ratings.

i've jumped into some sites/system that fooled me into thinking jackpot! but after awhile you realize that was just the lucky spawn. the most recent was after another hour in the galaxy map i gave up and went to a random high pop anarchy with a planet with rings. got there and no resource site so screw it, i dropped into the rings manually and OMG 150k anaconda!(haven't seen one since). killed it then another pirate immediately warps in, killed it then another. 1 by 1 they kept coming sidewinders, cobras, drop ships, up to another anaconda. ran out of ammo and when i came back nothing. not a single ship spawned. ok, jump out and back in this time something more interesting. type 6's and 7's and 9's but they had no bounty and the interesting part is they kept jump out within 20 seconds. again 1 by 1 they'd show up on sensors i'd boost to them and get a scan off as they jumped out. i've had both of these instances spawn a few times to go along with nothing at all. so another potential nice combat spot gone.

TL;DR heres the biggest problem facing elite right now. the only thing that scales is cargo space. combat endgame is a well fitted viper or cobra.

 

[Meritz]

Which is why you don't hunt in anarchy systems, and why you make assassination missions your bread and butter.

But yeah, combat wise there is no real point in fitting out a Python or an Anaconda - a grade A Cobra will do the trick. A well fitted Asp is already an overkill. A Python simply mows everything down and is too expensive to maintain on combat careers alone.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

You can earn about 3 times as much bounty hunting at the right resource extraction sites as what you earn at nav points. 500k an hour without any serious effort.
|
I just found a nice one last night and forgot to pay a fine before returning to the station. Lost 250k in bounties plus ship insurance for getting blown up. Didn't care one bit, because it took all of 20 minutes to earn that.

 

[Kepnik]

Hey Guys,

sorry had no time to reply until yet. Thanks for all the Input, I will try some of this stuff.
Dont know if it was just bad luck before but the last 2 days have been quite ok. Earned
between 80-200k per hour... still no comparison to a lakon 6 but it's worth the time

My Review on anarchy is that it has always been a waste of time... but maybe Ill give it another
try. Regarding the factions I am completely ignoring it atm. Does not seem to work anyway.
I am loosing Reputation since 2 days due to Shooting allys, but got a rank Progression
Mission yesterday, so it seems to have no big influence and I cant skip 70% of the
wanted ships.

From my Point of view nav Points are still viable, npc's never took my Money and if youre
going to a lonely System or solo it works quite well. ( I prefer a lonly System )

I tried extraction sites, but could not sense any difference to the nav Point, just random what
appears, but I will also give them a new try

Kind regards and have fun !

 

[excalibus]

So Guys,

I am finally fed up with what happened to this game... dont know if it is
cause of a patch or caused by my higher federation rank but its impossible
to get money as a bounty hunter atm.

At the beginning I made between 30-150k per hour in a good system ( with my 44k eagle ).
Quite fair if you compare that a lakon 6 which is cheaper than my actual viper
can make 100k in 20 minutes without any problem.

So since a few days its no fun anymore.
In combat zone I get 3k for an eagle ( ok ) but also 3k for an anconda ( waste of time )
At the nav point I am allied to everyone, just nearly destroyed an 100k anaconda,
but at 10% the security is starting attack run and i have to go. Also most of the tagets
jump away at 15-30 percent which is maybe okay if its an 100k anaconda, but for 5k
beeing dragged around for 10-20 ly is also not worth the time.

With exploring I earn about 10-30k per hour.

So thinking about buying anything better for my viper I need at least 800k. In the last 3 days
I made 500k and was destroyed twice for 100k so it was the profit a lakoon 6 can make in 1 hour.
With a playing time of about 15-20 hours....

So any Ideas ? Should I wait for a new patch ?
Or buy a boring freigher and play freighter captain just for the money ?

So... enough QQ love this game...

cough cough
conflict zones are not bounty hunting they are mercenary work, and the pay is the same regardless if its an unshielded fighter or a heavy attack ship

I just spent abour 2 hours bounty hunting (you know going after WANTED criminals) and made 260K in fed space with another 80K to collect eventually in alliance and empire space.
The highest single bounty was a 'conda and I did fight 2 of them in my 2 hour zone session (I could have made a lot more but insted of going back to refill my multi cannons after 20 minutes I plugged on with my dual pulse lasers for another 1 hour 40 mins

them wanted ships and pirates just kept coming what can I say... and its well on par with what I can earn in a cobra trading... In my lakon type 6 I could earn around 250K profit on a 3 system round trip which took about 10 - 12 minutes per trip... so easily 1 million an hour....

oh and I do not bounty hunt at the nav points... there are some really good spots to hunt and nav points are really below average material...

A competent bounty hunter knows to go further away from the nav point to the places that attract the scumbags who think they can get a free feed off the hard working rock chipers