I love bounty hunting, so I am doomed not to progress.

[[VR] Deggial]

The real "problem" I see with bounty hunting is that much of the bounties you collect can not be cashed in immediately.

When you finish a trade run, you are richer.
When you are hunting for bounty you are potentially richer. Realizing profit is what takes time and amassing some bounties to be worthwhile the trip is therefore tempting.

Just lost about 1.7 mio bounties in the Alliance and the Empire after crashing my vessel into an asteroid (FA OFF at an extraction site... ) on my way back to the "center" after sucessfully hunting down two Anacondas (200.000 cr. in 10-15 minutes). I just wanted to relax from the thrill, taking out a few Cobras before heading to the Empire...

So, yes, bounty hunting can be very profitable. If you don't act like a noob and try to play billards with celestial mountains...

 

[Quineloe]

Your point?

Why are you trolling so hard?

 

[Straha Yeagar]

You guys are making awful comparisons. Bounty hunting has risks, actual risks. You fight, your ship gets damaged, you may die (or at least beginners do). So you don't only have that lower income but also the additional risk, while trading is really nothing else than space trucking without any difficulties. Been there, done that, made millions in stupid quick time. So now I would compare trading being working at mcdonalds (oh been there as well btw) and hunting being something you actually gotta put some work into.

While I do think that the risk in bounty hunting is largely exaggerated, it certainly is there. The thing is, if I lose my kitted viper, the replacement cost is only about 50k. Repair bills are really cheap too. Trading is much lower risk, but dayum, I have heard some of the stories...losing a ship with a 10mil replacement, along with 50mil in cargo, all because someone rammed them while docking. All it takes in one interdiction to do millions in damage just from being pulled into normal space. Bad things don't happen near as often, but whoa boy when they do...

 

[Mungrul]

I'm a Bounty Hunter too, and I'm up to Master combat rank. All I've ever had is my trusty Cobra (my backer level entitles me to have one from the start).
And to be honest?
I see no reason to pursue "progression" beyond upgrading my Cobra.
She can take out anything that's thrown at her, and I have fun flying her. Besides which, this isn't an MMO with MMO style progression.
I'm happy to chase the various ranks as my form of progression, but I view my evolving ability as being the true measure of progression in Elite.
If you're a crappy pilot, it doesn't matter how expensive your ship and its modules are.
But if you're a good pilot, you should be able to make any ship dance.

 

[DB Cooper]

The Anaconda assassination missions can be completed at a rate of ~4 an hour without overt difficulty, and an hour spent fetching them will give you enough missions for two days.[/QUOTE]




After trading for while I got tired of running from interdictions, so when I got to 1.5M credits I parked my cobra and bought a viper to hone my piloting skills by bounty hunting. So far I have made enough to get it to almost all A status. I felt I had progressed enough to take on an elite anaconda mission ---- I have spent 2 nights searching for Anders at every USS I come across ---I got the update I just saw him in the other system notification but then nothing --- don't get me wrong there are plenty of wanted for me to dispatch at the uss's but have not been able to find my target

 

[PhazonAran]

I see no reason to pursue "progression" beyond upgrading my Cobra.

We don't need a reason. Personally I just want a big *ss ship.

 

[Starbuckz]

Why are you trolling so hard?

I'm not at all.

While I do think that the risk in bounty hunting is largely exaggerated, it certainly is there. The thing is, if I lose my kitted viper, the replacement cost is only about 50k. Repair bills are really cheap too. Trading is much lower risk, but dayum, I have heard some of the stories...losing a ship with a 10mil replacement, along with 50mil in cargo, all because someone rammed them while docking. All it takes in one interdiction to do millions in damage just from being pulled into normal space. Bad things don't happen near as often, but whoa boy when they do...

You are of course right. Which is another sign that we need some proper fighters between the viper and the python.

 

[ChubbyBunneh]

The Fer de Lance is supposed to be the pinnacle of a bounty hunter's career.
As far as I can tell it's not going to be a behemoth size ship like an Anaconda or even a Python. And it probably won't have a behemoth sized price tag either.

I see nothing wrong here. Bounty Hunters don't really need the giant armed trader vessels and wouldn't make use of the 200 - 400 tons of cargo bays anyway.

If you want something that's just bling and not really necessary for survival (like an Anaconda for a BH) be prepared to grind for it the same as the rest of us.

 

[thorn-]

I have heard some of the stories...losing a ship with a 10mil replacement, along with 50mil in cargo, all because someone rammed them while docking.

I often wonder how many of those loses were due to running without shields (a strangely popular choice for ship config), or bad decisions when entering/leaving a station.

Last night I was leaving a station in a T6, full of cargo. When I was right in the slot, some other Cmdr in a Hauler or T6 (can't remember which) zoomed out past by my port side. I was doing around 60-70, he was easily doing 150. Wouldn't be surprised if he scraped his paint on the slot wall... you'd have thought he was chased by a pack of Reavers. Didn't damage me at all, but I was left thinking - ya know, there's a guy that will get plastered in docking at some point and lose his toys, and then make a forum post about how insurance needs "fixing", or the slot needs to be bigger, or NPCs need to try harder to not ram you.

 

[Rhaedas]

Just levelling the field, which is absolutely legit. I concur.

No one thing should be equal to another. I think what you mean is, every path should have its own opportunities and value. Balance, level, even, those terms all imply some sense of equality needed between a play style, profession, class, what have you, and that's just not reality. Which is what we should try to model, because when things start feeling artificially supported, that's when the game begins to lose some of it's flavor. The current missions for example, you play them enough, you see the construction and patterns and lack of effects, and that's why people are complaining about them and why hopefully the revamp will have more depth and meaning to it.

 

[Starbuckz]

The Anaconda assassination missions can be completed at a rate of ~4 an hour without overt difficulty, and an hour spent fetching them will give you enough missions for two days.

After trading for while I got tired of running from interdictions, so when I got to 1.5M credits I parked my cobra and bought a viper to hone my piloting skills by bounty hunting. So far I have made enough to get it to almost all A status. I felt I had progressed enough to take on an elite anaconda mission ---- I have spent 2 nights searching for Anders at every USS I come across ---I got the update I just saw him in the other system notification but then nothing --- don't get me wrong there are plenty of wanted for me to dispatch at the uss's but have not been able to find my target

You must have been doing something wrong, seriously. Killing Anacondas is my only income for weeks and besides some turning out to be Orcas instead (known bug) it never happened to me that a target wasn't to be found.
You only have to jump to one of the locations described in the mission info and from there to another depending what a ship at a USS told you. Two systems, anaconda found. Remember to always fly at 30km/s when searching for USS, they will appear directly in front of you, you only have to press the button and you are in.

 

[Rhaedas]

The Fer de Lance is supposed to be the pinnacle of a bounty hunter's career.
As far as I can tell it's not going to be a behemoth size ship like an Anaconda or even a Python. And it probably won't have a behemoth sized price tag either.

I see nothing wrong here. Bounty Hunters don't really need the giant armed trader vessels and wouldn't make use of the 200 - 400 tons of cargo bays anyway.

Why would you need such a large ship for bounty hunting or smuggling anyway? The size works against you in visibility and maneuvering and you don't need all that cargo space for those professions, just enough space for the various tools of the trade. The Falcon wasn't all that big compared to other ships.

 

[Starbuckz]

No one thing should be equal to another. I think what you mean is, every path should have its own opportunities and value. Balance, level, even, those terms all imply some sense of equality needed between a play style, profession, class, what have you, and that's just not reality. Which is what we should try to model, because when things start feeling artificially supported, that's when the game begins to lose some of it's flavor. The current missions for example, you play them enough, you see the construction and patterns and lack of effects, and that's why people are complaining about them and why hopefully the revamp will have more depth and meaning to it.

You are right, so again, am I right? There is some serious unbalance in this universe, and we need some action taken against.

 

[Rhaedas]

Remember to always fly at 30km/s when searching for USS, they will appear directly in front of you, you only have to press the button and you are in.

Yeah, that's the biggest issue I have with USSs, and I have many. Let's make things pop up for someone instead of making them look for evidence, and let's make it pop up relative to their speed, so it's easy to jump into. Can we be spoon fed any more than this?

 

[Evil]

Not doomed, just going to be a slower rate of progression, if you determine that progression is the basis of credit accumulation.

 

[BrewerGeorge]

I think a lot of you non-traders seriously overestimate how much money is made trading. It's more, sure, but not orders of magnitude more - at least not until traders are in ships costing orders of magnitude more.

 

[ChubbyBunneh]

Why would you need such a large ship for bounty hunting or smuggling anyway? The size works against you in visibility and maneuvering and you don't need all that cargo space for those professions, just enough space for the various tools of the trade. The Falcon wasn't all that big compared to other ships.

Yup I agree. Bigger != Better for every profession. I can see the smaller heat sig and ability to land on outposts that small ships have being more useful for smugglers and bounty hunters who occasionally end up on the wrong side of the law than gigantic ships with huge cargo holds.

 

[Starbuckz]

I think a lot of you non-traders seriously overestimate how much money is made trading. It's more, sure, but not orders of magnitude more - at least not until traders are in ships costing orders of magnitude more.

Well but it is. I traded some and made millions in a few hours, can't say that from bounty hunting. It is possible but it happens very rarely and inconsistent. Oh that's another point, trading is a consistent source of income, it's secure.

 

[Underhook]

You must have been doing something wrong, seriously. Killing Anacondas is my only income for weeks and besides some turning out to be Orcas instead (known bug) it never happened to me that a target wasn't to be found.
You only have to jump to one of the locations described in the mission info and from there to another depending what a ship at a USS told you. Two systems, anaconda found. Remember to always fly at 30km/s when searching for USS, they will appear directly in front of you, you only have to press the button and you are in.

I did a mission today. Went to 1st system USS and got told where to find the target. Went to the targets system. I had to go to 10 USS to find the . So all up 1 hour for 160k.

Bounty hunting rewards are so unpredictable due to stuff like that.

Another example. Bounty hunting at extraction site. Lots of Cobra's and 175k in 40 mins (not bad). Next time I go out, I get nothing but sidewinders. 45k in 45 mins

 

[Phaaded]

/facepalm

They are not hard, they are reputation and system specific, systems with factions that hate each other are best source for such missions and having at least somewhat standing in with all involved factions will mean that you can gather often several of those mission on each docking. And once you have half dozen missions with 200k reward each and a juicity 50k anaconda as target than credits come real fast into your wallet. Hey, my best result was like making 700k in 10 minutes, with some lucky interdiction of some wanted Asps and a Python.

And if you have multiple 150k Anaconda spawns in your RES than for sure it payday for a few minutes of pew pew too.

Sorry bud, but I gotta call you out.

You did not complete 6 wanted anaconda missions in 10 minutes. You probably didn't complete even one.

I sometimes must spend up to 30 minutes flying to idiotic USS to find one mission objective.