Proposal Discussion Kill Warrant Scanner Feedback

[MadDogMurdock]

Hello Sandro,
I think the latest proposal goes part of the way to resolving the issue but it still leaves a gap for unpopulated systems, and using neighbouring systems for CGs.
The unpopulated system gap kind of hurts a traditional BH trope of tracking perps through the wastelands which would be a shame to lose.
There is also a travel incentive that is supplied by gaining bounties that you need to go elsewhere to collect.

Is there a possibility of using locality to resolve this issue?
You'll know for sure but in my experience NPCs generally only carry bounties for the local system and systems a relatively short distance away.
Players could be carrying bounties from all over the place.

By limiting the reach of the KWS to an appropriate distance, we can keep the current NPC functionality, and limit player bounty exposure.

I'm assuming that Notoriety is only applicable to players, so perhaps it could be used as a distance multiplier to add risk to high notoriety players.
By default NPCs would have notoriety level 1 and the KWS distance limit naturally encompasses where their bounties are generated from.
KWS use on players could multiply the distance by notoriety level and thus use it to increase the risk of maintaining a high notoriety and reward bounty hunters for catching perps quickly.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander MadDogMurdock!

Hello Sandro,
I think the latest proposal goes part of the way to resolving the issue but it still leaves a gap for unpopulated systems, and using neighbouring systems for CGs.
The unpopulated system gap kind of hurts a traditional BH trope of tracking perps through the wastelands which would be a shame to lose.
There is also a travel incentive that is supplied by gaining bounties that you need to go elsewhere to collect.

Is there a possibility of using locality to resolve this issue?
You'll know for sure but in my experience NPCs generally only carry bounties for the local system and systems a relatively short distance away.
Players could be carrying bounties from all over the place.

By limiting the reach of the KWS to an appropriate distance, we can keep the current NPC functionality, and limit player bounty exposure.

I'm assuming that Notoriety is only applicable to players, so perhaps it could be used as a distance multiplier to add risk to high notoriety players.
By default NPCs would have notoriety level 1 and the KWS distance limit naturally encompasses where their bounties are generated from.
KWS use on players could multiply the distance by notoriety level and thus use it to increase the risk of maintaining a high notoriety and reward bounty hunters for catching perps quickly.

I understand that chasing fugitives across multiple systems and multiple governments is no longer an option for the Kill Warrant scanner. However This is something we will be looking to address in a future update, where we'd like to improve wake scanning and look at other modules, such as tracker limpets (No ETA, no guarantees, obviously).

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Hello Commander MadDogMurdock!



I understand that chasing fugitives across multiple systems and multiple governments is no longer an option for the Kill Warrant scanner. However This is something we will be looking to address in a future update, where we'd like to improve wake scanning and look at other modules, such as tracker limpets (No ETA, no guarantees, obviously).

Please don't don't focus on that hope for the future of Bounty Hunting and miss the locality suggestion to resolve the imminent problem.

Could it work?

 

[Shanaeri]

I disagree. I think they came up with a nice compromise. You gain something (new C&P + interstellar bounties) and you lose something (rep issue). I really think the last proposal is an acceptable consensus. (And I say that as a 30+ systems faction leader, so I know a thing or two about rep farming here and there ).

I think that's the thing about the KWS. It's use results in so many subtle but key effects for the bounty hunting profession that while one thing might suit one person, they positively ruin it for another. In the case, while it fits what you and your group do, those players who attend bounty hunting CG's stand to lose out.

How it works in 2.4 seems to suit more people than this proposal, except for murderers who stand to get stung for their crimes.

While the revised proposal nearly gets there, it's still very complex and seems as though it needs careful monitoring with every CG to make sure something doesn't break. If something needs a whole "This is how it works" post, and careful consideration as to where CG's are placed it would seem at least to me to need more thought and work.

What is clear, is that if the 3.0 beta goes in, it will break a huge amount of the bounty hunting profession and PvE/CG stuff in general...

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

Hello Commanders!

We've taken a step back and revaluated what we want the Kill Warrant Scanner to achieve, as well as look at how it fits in with the bigger picture of the update crime system. Part of the issue we run into with the KWS is how it interacts with Interstellar bounties. We've decided to more clearly delineate the roles of these to features:

• The KWS reveals bounties for all jurisdictions in the local system.
• The KWS provides a license to kill for all bounties associated with the jurisdiction’s superpower.
• The KWS removes any reputation loss from destroying wanted ships, unless the wanted ship belongs to a criminal faction.

With this suite of rules, we can see that the Kill Warrant scanner becomes a clearly defined tool. It communicates with all security channels within the system, allowing Commanders to fully exploit bounty hunting opportunities where they are.

This allows the Kill Warrant scanner to be effective in gaining reputation, tactically supporting factions and of course, increasing profits (we'd be looking at making sure the right levels of crime are linked to factions in the system). It also means that bounty hunters can continue to work in anarchies.

Whilst it does lose some power being limited to the system where it is being used, we've offset this by allowing the Kill Warrant scanner to legitimise attack when dealing with bounties associated with a superpower. We've also made it more robust in protecting the bounty hunter's reputation when working a system.

This also allows Interstellar bounties to remain relevant:

• Interstellar Bounties provide a license to kill in all associated jurisdictions.
• Interstellar bounties are packed up for the criminal, unpacked for the bounty hunter.

Interstellar bounties have a specific role - to make criminals legal targets in every associated jurisdiction. Basically, once you have an Interstellar bounty for a superpower (such as the Federation), all bounties from Federal aligned factions will be visible - and legally claimable - to anyone performing a basic scan on you whilst in a Federal aligned jurisdiction. Furthermore, the bounty hunter still retains the ability to claim or avoid individual bounties within an Interstellar bounty, allowing them to interact with the background simulation as before.

These rules also mitigate one of our bugbears: superpowers honouring each others bounties. Whilst this can happen at a local level using the Kill Warrant scanner, such bounties are local bounties connected with the faction rather than the superpower.

Once a bounty becomes Interstellar, the superpowers get involved, and they take a different approach - only accepting claims within their jurisdiction.

Overall, we're quite happy with this proposal, to the point of looking into making it happen, so feedback is greatly appreciated.

Looks good to me. I like it.

 

[TheDarkLord]

The revised proposals look sensible to me. I only ever really do PvE, so was concerned about the degradation of the KWS. It seems that these proposals undo pretty much all of that.

 

[raymondo the great]

Yes, the Kill Warrant scanner would reveal all bounties for all factions in the system. However, unless the bounties were issued by factions that were aligned with the same superpower as the jurisdiction's controlling faction you would not be able to legally attack.

e.g. In a jurisdiction controlled by the Beige Cowboys (a Federally aligned faction), bounties issued by the Blandro Corporation (an independent faction in the system) would be detected, but no license to kill would be issued. However, bounties issued by the Folk of No Remarko (another Federally aligned faction in the system) would be detected and would provide a license to kill, as both factions involved (the faction controlling the jurisdiction and the faction issuing the bounty) share the same superpower alignment.

Thanks for the response Sandro - and for playing along

Ok I can see circumstances where this may actually make sense sitting and thinking about it - Beige Cowboys are lets say Cambridge police sticking up wanted posters for someone who stole a really bad cowboy hat, and Blandro corp are some gangsters out of London who want information on an informant and are paying for it, it would not make sense for the police (ruling faction) to be acknowledging what these people are doing or for it to be legitimised.

So while initially I thought this was a bad thing as we are losing somthing we have in the new system, I actually like this part more, as it means you could get paid by a minor criminal faction for stuff in a system while the ruling faction decides you are wanted for those actions. Which for me deepens "playing the BGS" and means you actually need to think about your actions. I like it.

Only further question on this is what would happen if you worked the minor faction up to be the controlling faction? Having say killed people for them that upped their influence but got you wanted the previous ruling faction would now be a minor and would have "minor" bounties on you but you wouldn't be wanted by the "new" System Authority? Or if you did get wanted by the SA for helping Bladro Corp would you still be wanted by the SA when Blandro corp has kicked those Beige Cowboys out to the fringes?


Anyway overall proposal is much improved on all ones from Beta onwards. I'd give it a B+. We still have "lost" stuff from live, but some of the proposed changes make it seem more interesting and "immersive", though others don't. Still far better than any of the other proposals.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander MadDogMurdock!

Potentially locality could work, but I'm not convinced that it would be the right solution. Keeping the Kill Warrant scanner limited to a single system is *very* clean in terms of legibility and effect.

Hello Commander Shanaeri!

I completely disagree with you about the complexity of the new system. The crime system for Elite *is* reasonably complex, but that's because it's doing a lot of interesting things. The Kill Warrant scanner itself would simply detect all local bounties and provide a license to kill for superpower aligned bounties detected. Not particularly complicated, in my opinion.

CGs should not break. At all. You might not be able to be as efficient, but that's it.

So I'm not convinced that bounty hunting or CGs will be broken if we go with this change. I'm completely open to specific examples, of course.

 

[PeLucheuh]

Is it because of the KWS that i respawn in a detention centre if i get destroyed (by another player) in an anarchy system ?

 

[Ryan P Bodfirst]

I like this a lot - great to see you are taking the time to make this believable.

It adds up and also provides a good platform for new features to expand on this in a believable, immersive way going forward.

 

[zzUrbanSpaceman]

qq: in an anarchy system, where crimes don't count for anything, how would it be possible for a local bounty to even occur? It still seems to me that the KWS would be fairly useless in an anarchy system?

 

[MDHansen]

Hello Commanders!

We've taken a step back and revaluated what we want the Kill Warrant Scanner to achieve, as well as look at how it fits in with the bigger picture of the update crime system. Part of the issue we run into with the KWS is how it interacts with Interstellar bounties. We've decided to more clearly delineate the roles of these to features:

• The KWS reveals bounties for all jurisdictions in the local system.
• The KWS provides a license to kill for all bounties associated with the jurisdiction’s superpower.
• The KWS removes any reputation loss from destroying wanted ships, unless the wanted ship belongs to a criminal faction.

With this suite of rules, we can see that the Kill Warrant scanner becomes a clearly defined tool. It communicates with all security channels within the system, allowing Commanders to fully exploit bounty hunting opportunities where they are.

This allows the Kill Warrant scanner to be effective in gaining reputation, tactically supporting factions and of course, increasing profits (we'd be looking at making sure the right levels of crime are linked to factions in the system). It also means that bounty hunters can continue to work in anarchies.

Whilst it does lose some power being limited to the system where it is being used, we've offset this by allowing the Kill Warrant scanner to legitimise attack when dealing with bounties associated with a superpower. We've also made it more robust in protecting the bounty hunter's reputation when working a system.

This also allows Interstellar bounties to remain relevant:

• Interstellar Bounties provide a license to kill in all associated jurisdictions.
• Interstellar bounties are packed up for the criminal, unpacked for the bounty hunter.

Interstellar bounties have a specific role - to make criminals legal targets in every associated jurisdiction. Basically, once you have an Interstellar bounty for a superpower (such as the Federation), all bounties from Federal aligned factions will be visible - and legally claimable - to anyone performing a basic scan on you whilst in a Federal aligned jurisdiction. Furthermore, the bounty hunter still retains the ability to claim or avoid individual bounties within an Interstellar bounty, allowing them to interact with the background simulation as before.

These rules also mitigate one of our bugbears: superpowers honouring each others bounties. Whilst this can happen at a local level using the Kill Warrant scanner, such bounties are local bounties connected with the faction rather than the superpower.

Once a bounty becomes Interstellar, the superpowers get involved, and they take a different approach - only accepting claims within their jurisdiction.

Overall, we're quite happy with this proposal, to the point of looking into making it happen, so feedback is greatly appreciated.

Hi Mr. Sammarco

I for one are intrigued by these changes, and hope that these changes get in to the live build. As a PVE'r and BGS player, I dont see these having an impact on my daily gameplay, or outcome of my gameplay.

Curious though to if the bounties themselves are gonna be raised, in general, a tiny bit? To reflect the little loss that obviously is gonna be there compared to 2.4 KWS.


Best regards
Mads Duus Hansen

 

[Sylow]

Hmm. I personally would've prefered the previous concept. The new one works, but the previous one had more "flavour" to me.
.
Yes, there seemed to be a gap of bounty hunting in anarchy, but if you also look at the mission board, then that part is actually covered. If anything, perhaps a sub-section of the missions board, called "bounty board" would've been what i would've prefered. So if you want to actually hunt your bounties, you go there and get going. Just be sure to bring your wake scanner and FDS interdictor. (And possibly some friends, if it's a wing mission. )
.
But as i seem to be rather alone on this, i have to admit that the last concept also works. It's significally closer to what we currently have and while i would've appreciated the change, it will still be a useful and working system.
.

 

[Skatez69]

hey Sandro, just want to thank you for the openness in which you and your team have looked into this community raised issue. You've taken the feedback and really tried to work with us, so thank you for that.

I have a question relating to this:

e.g. In a jurisdiction controlled by the Beige Cowboys (a Federally aligned faction), bounties issued by the Blandro Corporation (an independent faction in the system) would be detected, but no license to kill would be issued. However, bounties issued by the Folk of No Remarko (another Federally aligned faction in the system) would be detected and would provide a license to kill, as both factions involved (the faction controlling the jurisdiction and the faction issuing the bounty) share the same superpower alignment.

I'm assuming that if a target has a bounty on them that isn't aligned to the faction in the system, they would still show as Wanted, so how will we be able to distinguish if we've got a licence to kill or not?

 

[Shanaeri]

Hello Commander MadDogMurdock!

Potentially locality could work, but I'm not convinced that it would be the right solution. Keeping the Kill Warrant scanner limited to a single system is *very* clean in terms of legibility and effect.

Hello Commander Shanaeri!

I completely disagree with you about the complexity of the new system. The crime system for Elite *is* reasonably complex, but that's because it's doing a lot of interesting things. The Kill Warrant scanner itself would simply detect all local bounties and provide a license to kill for superpower aligned bounties detected. Not particularly complicated, in my opinion.

CGs should not break. At all. You might not be able to be as efficient, but that's it.

So I'm not convinced that bounty hunting or CGs will be broken if we go with this change. I'm completely open to specific examples, of course.

Hi Sandro.. Couple of examples...

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/404627-Alliance-Security-Initiative-(Bounty-Hunting)

and

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php/407431-Protecting-Traders-in-Momoirent-(Bounty-Hunting)

Notice how the optimum systems to complete the CG are not in the main CG system(I've not directly checked, but it may not be possible to fully complete the CG in the latter example due to the limited nature of the location)

It's more complex, because care needs to be taken to ensure that where a CG happens isn't going to fail because of the above factors, and that "it covers everything" is less complicated than wondering where you are, what factions are involved and if this place will help repair your super power reputation due to the decay mechanism.

Hope it helps

 

[Alec Turner]

Hello Commander MadDogMurdock!

I understand that chasing fugitives across multiple systems and multiple governments is no longer an option for the Kill Warrant scanner. However This is something we will be looking to address in a future update, where we'd like to improve wake scanning and look at other modules, such as tracker limpets (No ETA, no guarantees, obviously).

With the loss of bounties from other systems which the current (2.4) KWS gives us, the one thing the new system will be missing out on (as I understand it) is the need to visit other systems in order to claim those additional bounties. This is a shame as anything in the game which naturally leads the pilot to other places in the galaxy seems like a good thing to me. So if there is a future possibility for bounty hunting mechanics to lead us to other places (whether in pursuit of the fugitive themselves or simply to claim additional bounties) then that would be highly desireable imho.

hey Sandro, just want to thank you for the openness in which you and your team have looked into this community raised issue. You've taken the feedback and really tried to work with us, so thank you for that.

Hear hear - I totally agree with this sentiment. Thanks Sandro!

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Hello Commanders!

We've taken a step back and revaluated what we want the Kill Warrant Scanner to achieve, as well as look at how it fits in with the bigger picture of the update crime system. Part of the issue we run into with the KWS is how it interacts with Interstellar bounties. We've decided to more clearly delineate the roles of these to features:

• The KWS reveals bounties for all jurisdictions in the local system.
• The KWS provides a license to kill for all bounties associated with the jurisdiction’s superpower.
• The KWS removes any reputation loss from destroying wanted ships, unless the wanted ship belongs to a criminal faction.

With this suite of rules, we can see that the Kill Warrant scanner becomes a clearly defined tool. It communicates with all security channels within the system, allowing Commanders to fully exploit bounty hunting opportunities where they are.

This allows the Kill Warrant scanner to be effective in gaining reputation, tactically supporting factions and of course, increasing profits (we'd be looking at making sure the right levels of crime are linked to factions in the system). It also means that bounty hunters can continue to work in anarchies.

Whilst it does lose some power being limited to the system where it is being used, we've offset this by allowing the Kill Warrant scanner to legitimise attack when dealing with bounties associated with a superpower. We've also made it more robust in protecting the bounty hunter's reputation when working a system.

This also allows Interstellar bounties to remain relevant:

• Interstellar Bounties provide a license to kill in all associated jurisdictions.
• Interstellar bounties are packed up for the criminal, unpacked for the bounty hunter.

Interstellar bounties have a specific role - to make criminals legal targets in every associated jurisdiction. Basically, once you have an Interstellar bounty for a superpower (such as the Federation), all bounties from Federal aligned factions will be visible - and legally claimable - to anyone performing a basic scan on you whilst in a Federal aligned jurisdiction. Furthermore, the bounty hunter still retains the ability to claim or avoid individual bounties within an Interstellar bounty, allowing them to interact with the background simulation as before.

These rules also mitigate one of our bugbears: superpowers honouring each others bounties. Whilst this can happen at a local level using the Kill Warrant scanner, such bounties are local bounties connected with the faction rather than the superpower.

Once a bounty becomes Interstellar, the superpowers get involved, and they take a different approach - only accepting claims within their jurisdiction.

Overall, we're quite happy with this proposal, to the point of looking into making it happen, so feedback is greatly appreciated.

I like this whole proposal. Thanks, Sandro!

 

[CMDR _BigJay_]

Hello Commanders!

We've taken a step back and revaluated what we want the Kill Warrant Scanner to achieve, as well as look at how it fits in with the bigger picture of the update crime system. Part of the issue we run into with the KWS is how it interacts with Interstellar bounties. We've decided to more clearly delineate the roles of these to features:

• The KWS reveals bounties for all jurisdictions in the local system.
• The KWS provides a license to kill for all bounties associated with the jurisdiction’s superpower.
• The KWS removes any reputation loss from destroying wanted ships, unless the wanted ship belongs to a criminal faction.

With this suite of rules, we can see that the Kill Warrant scanner becomes a clearly defined tool. It communicates with all security channels within the system, allowing Commanders to fully exploit bounty hunting opportunities where they are.

This allows the Kill Warrant scanner to be effective in gaining reputation, tactically supporting factions and of course, increasing profits (we'd be looking at making sure the right levels of crime are linked to factions in the system). It also means that bounty hunters can continue to work in anarchies.

Whilst it does lose some power being limited to the system where it is being used, we've offset this by allowing the Kill Warrant scanner to legitimise attack when dealing with bounties associated with a superpower. We've also made it more robust in protecting the bounty hunter's reputation when working a system.

This also allows Interstellar bounties to remain relevant:

• Interstellar Bounties provide a license to kill in all associated jurisdictions.
• Interstellar bounties are packed up for the criminal, unpacked for the bounty hunter.

Interstellar bounties have a specific role - to make criminals legal targets in every associated jurisdiction. Basically, once you have an Interstellar bounty for a superpower (such as the Federation), all bounties from Federal aligned factions will be visible - and legally claimable - to anyone performing a basic scan on you whilst in a Federal aligned jurisdiction. Furthermore, the bounty hunter still retains the ability to claim or avoid individual bounties within an Interstellar bounty, allowing them to interact with the background simulation as before.

These rules also mitigate one of our bugbears: superpowers honouring each others bounties. Whilst this can happen at a local level using the Kill Warrant scanner, such bounties are local bounties connected with the faction rather than the superpower.

Once a bounty becomes Interstellar, the superpowers get involved, and they take a different approach - only accepting claims within their jurisdiction.

Overall, we're quite happy with this proposal, to the point of looking into making it happen, so feedback is greatly appreciated.

I like it. Thanks for working this out with us.

 

[Bunkerkind Anni]

As for the bounty hunting CGs,
i would propose that the rate of Pirates spawning to hunt down those with CG relevant cargo is increased significantly (right now in a high-sec system it doesn't happen very often)
those pirates then should also be worthy to be shot down.

this would make the whole CG more logical then "go grind npcs in totally unrelated REZ masses of NPCs to the max profit"

also, due to a CG, the security level of the system should be lowered. you know - more traffic, overworked security... etc.
just the logical result, or actually the logical reason for the bounty hunting CG to exist in the first place.

another question is:
do i need a KWS to detect Powerplay bounties?

third question:
will we get an indicator on the HUD after a succesfull KWS scan that i am allowed to attack the target? (including an audio-visual confirmation that my multicrew gunner has completed such a scan!!!)

 

[DARGAN]

In anarchy jurisdictions (all lawless factions are becoming anarchies, as the distinction is ultimately unecessary) the Kill Warrant scanner will detect all bounties for all factions in the system. Clearly, no crimes are committed in the anarchy jurisdiction, but detected bounties can be claimed.

am I well understood ?
the distinction is useless yes, I have always had a little trouble making it.

the KWS will detect all bounties for all factions in the system.. it's enough.. a bit hard for non-lethal pirates (bounty without notoriety) however.

I'm going a little bit maybe ... if it's possible to be a pirate without any notoriety why the bounty hunters have their permission to kill them (and earn credit).. but maybe something escapes me.

I have the impression that this new system will make bounty hunters the real murderer now, but this suits me, I rarely play pirate Open.. in any case, all i read about being a bounty hunter seems much easier and it pays more.