I just recently got back into ED. I seem to be much less successful at bounty hunting then i was before. I have been trying high intensity extraction sites with little luck. Any hints or suggestions? (I currently have an almost fully upgraded Viper)
Key to Bounty Hunting
- Thread starter TheBahrbarian
- Start date
Go near Cubeo and find one of the systems that is still under duress. It might not matter, but I had more success there than anywhere, ever, and I've bounty hunted everywhere it seems. Then remember there are no anacondas in the res sites that are anything other than feds.
Also, a couple things:
1. If you want big ships, you'll have to keep resetting the instance until you find them. You'll know when because you'll either see a wanted Clipper or a small ship like a Sidewinder mining. If you see a big ship mining it seems most of the time that's going to be a small ship spawn.
2. The res sites are much emptier than they were before, however you can reset the instance enough until you get the spawn you want. Immersion killing I know, but it's a common practice if you're res hunting.
3. Begin interdicting ships. You can find a lot of wanted ships in anarchy systems. Take a mission to kill a few pirates or a specific person, then the game seems to spawn a ton of other stuff for you to do. Find the USS sites and keep spamming them until you've gotten your fill, then go after the target.
I've also gotten some good kills at the belts, not just res sites.
If you have been away for a while, the AI had got a bit of an upgrade a little while ago, be aware of that. RES hunting seems to be a matter of resetting the instance until you get a good mix of ships. Get in one, if it lacks high value targets go out to the menu then back in until the targets are better. You need to search around the RES. The targets don't always come to you. The best targets can be quite a distance from the marker. As you maneuver around, look for weapons fire in the distance, that will help you find targets. You will learn to tell the difference between mining laser fire, and combat.
Here are some pieces of good advice:
1). Check out this forum thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=132183 as it covers in good detail a lot about bounty hunting as Resource Extraction Sites, even if it was created before v1.3.
2) a quick summary of the above is as follows:
As for high, low, and regular RES sites:
1) high intensity will have a lower police presence when little combat is happening, and a larger number of wanted ship spawns (faster rate and more of them)
2) unless you are experienced and in a large combat rated ship (anaconda, python, or others with enough shield cell banks) do not bring cargo to a high intensity RES site as every single pirate that does a cargo scan will attack you and with the higher spawn rate you can quickly be overwhelmed
3) RES sites not prefixed with high or low intensity are regular RES sites and will have a mix of pirates/police/bystandards that are close to what was before v1.3
4) there will be a high police presence in low intensity sites
Additional factors influencing spawn rates and bounty levels:
The system security level now has a larger effect on spawn rates and bounty levels. High security systems will have lower spawn rates and generally lower bounties whereas low security systems will have higher spawn rates and generally higher bounties. The first way to check the security level of a system is to look and see if it is either a control or exploited system by a powerplay power that has effects on system security with examples including but not limited to Archon Delaine decreases security and Arissia Lavigny-Duval increases security. The next easily found marker for higher security systems is if any minor faction is in a state of lockdown or civil war/war as these increase system security. The last easily found indicator is if the system is important to a major faction, as the capitals of each major faction seem to have higher security.
1). Check out this forum thread https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=132183 as it covers in good detail a lot about bounty hunting as Resource Extraction Sites, even if it was created before v1.3.
2) a quick summary of the above is as follows:
As for high, low, and regular RES sites:
1) high intensity will have a lower police presence when little combat is happening, and a larger number of wanted ship spawns (faster rate and more of them)
2) unless you are experienced and in a large combat rated ship (anaconda, python, or others with enough shield cell banks) do not bring cargo to a high intensity RES site as every single pirate that does a cargo scan will attack you and with the higher spawn rate you can quickly be overwhelmed
3) RES sites not prefixed with high or low intensity are regular RES sites and will have a mix of pirates/police/bystandards that are close to what was before v1.3
4) there will be a high police presence in low intensity sites
Additional factors influencing spawn rates and bounty levels:
The system security level now has a larger effect on spawn rates and bounty levels. High security systems will have lower spawn rates and generally lower bounties whereas low security systems will have higher spawn rates and generally higher bounties. The first way to check the security level of a system is to look and see if it is either a control or exploited system by a powerplay power that has effects on system security with examples including but not limited to Archon Delaine decreases security and Arissia Lavigny-Duval increases security. The next easily found marker for higher security systems is if any minor faction is in a state of lockdown or civil war/war as these increase system security. The last easily found indicator is if the system is important to a major faction, as the capitals of each major faction seem to have higher security.
Missions. Missions missions missions. Bounce between three or fewer low sec and rather isolated systems (to condense the number of systems the missions will be for), grab all the 'kill x pirate' missions you can, hang out in supercruise and interdict every wanted thing along the 'highway' between the station and the drop in. Turn in mission, rearm, grab more missions, redeploy. Rake in 3-5m/hr.
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Bounty hunting isn't about RES anymore - you will find that it's much more about hunting down your targets in supercruise.
Wot he said.
Basically, since the 1.3 update, I've been finding missions to be more fun and varied with potentially more profit than RES hunting.
In addition, as long as you don't mind picking up a local bounty on your head, if you take some assassination missions as well the rewards get even better.
To be honest, I've found having a reasonably large bounty on my head in systems neighbouring my "home" one has added a nice thrill to my game. Players see the bounty and inevitably try to claim it. Usually I send them packing, but once in a while I'll get a competent bounty hunter who'll be set up specifically for hunting players like me. Whatever, both types add a distinct element of fun and force me to improve my skills
I've also seen my actions cause conflict zones to pop up in the systems I play in, which gives me a warm fuzzy feeling. Basically, there are consequences to my actions now, and as a result I actively try to foster tensions between my home system and its neighbours.
The resulting conflict zones that pop up can also be more profitable than RES now thanks to the update. Bonds are more valuable than they used to be, and you don't have to spend time using the KWS between kills. Just destroy one red target and move on to the next.
