Correct. The system is independent of the superpowers and does not tolerate the extrajudicial killing of 'their' criminals on its territory. Per Sandy's answer to my earlier questions, you won't even see the superpower bounties on basic scan or KWS. If, however the criminal also has a bounty from the local jurisdiction, they will be just fine about you killing them there, but you won't claim the big Interstellar bounties you don't know about.
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Correct. The system is independent of the superpowers and does not tolerate the extrajudicial killing of 'their' criminals on its territory. Per Sandy's answer to my earlier questions, you won't even see the superpower bounties on basic scan or KWS. If, however the criminal also has a bounty from the local jurisdiction, they will be just fine about you killing them there, but you won't claim the big Interstellar bounties you don't know about.
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
Are you sure you will not see the superpower bounties? where did Sandro wrote that....
Anyway I dont like the idea to make the KWS work only in systems with a fractions... its not a KILL WARRANT SCANNER any more - you have to read a 10 page manual to know when it will show what!!
Making the KWS useless in systems without a fraction...... means you cant chase a criminal even if you could follow him via a high wake scan.... I mean you can but without getting any bounty for your work?
Is that the idea of putting a bounty on an criminal??
I can agree that its a criminal act to chase a FEDERATION criminal in a EMPIRE system - as a BH you can choose to attack (and be a criminal in this EMPIRE system) or not . FINE. THATS O.k.
But if I attack criminal why should I not get the FEDERAL BOUNTY? I did my job as BH . I want my bounty. Also in a LAWLESS or ANARCHY systems.
The "new" KWS system is unnecessary complicated.
So we're all agreed it's a nerf to current KWS usage in a PvE setting.
Which means you cannot go to an Empire system and find unwanted ships in that jurisdiction who are wanted by the Feds and chose to become wanted in that Empire system to earn rep+money with the Feds who you support
Whereas if the KWS reveals all bounties from all powers you would theoretically be able to do that. (Like US bounty hunters operating in Mexico) The only question really is if the "live" system was revealing bounties for other superpowers as I seem to remember reading Sandro saying it isn't (or maybe that should be shouldn't) but I think anyone who has ever BH'd with a KWS knows you do get plenty of Empire and Fed bounties normally. Though that could have been due to mixed systems? Don't know if it did/does actually happen in live if you are in an entirely federal system you can get some empire bounties.
Whereas if the KWS reveals all bounties from all powers you would theoretically be able to do that. (Like US bounty hunters operating in Mexico) The only question really is if the "live" system was revealing bounties for other superpowers as I seem to remember reading Sandro saying it isn't (or maybe that should be shouldn't) but I think anyone who has ever BH'd with a KWS knows you do get plenty of Empire and Fed bounties normally. Though that could have been due to mixed systems? Don't know if it did/does actually happen in live if you are in an entirely federal system you can get some empire bounties.
Now, in the hypothetical Empire system, the NPCs' bounties that would have been foreign lightweight superpower bounties will be issued by local factions instead. If there are fed minor factions, you can detect those, claim them, and become wanted with the Empire in doing so. It's just the label on the bounty will be different.
No, I'm afraid you're mistaken here.
The KWS will only reveal bounties from local factions now. The whole point is they're getting rid of those generic 'major power' bounties. They are making it simpler. And it means what you just described will not happen. It will not generate an Empire bounty in a system which doesn't have an Empire faction in it. Instead of an Empire bounty, there will be a bounty from an Empire-aligned minor faction in the system, which means you can claim the bounty in the system.
You want a basic run down?
Basic scan -> Wanted? -> Yes -> Legally attackable, kill it and get the moneys
Add KWS scan -> Adds some bounties from other local factions -> more moneys, awesome
That's it, pretty much. There's some other bonuses, like how the KWS prevents rep loss except when you kill anarchy faction ships, but it essentially hasn't changed much except you just don't have those weird generic superpower bounties anymore.
Everything else is giving you options about how you claim your bounties, so a more advanced player who wants to work the background simulation can selectively support which factions they want by bounty hunting.
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
O.k. thanks.... so in 3.0x we will have a SKWS
SOMEPLACES KILL WARRANT SCANNER... and RTFM before use LOL.
Nope, most definitely not agreed.
Regarding credit income - in theory, there should be no change. The old lightweight interstellar bounties are being replaced, not removed. According to what we've been told, the total value of bounties should not change. Of course, we will have to see how that actually pans out in the live game, but it's definitely inaccurate to just declare its a nerf regarding credits.
Regarding reputation - the new KWS will prevent you losing reputation if you use it on a Wanted ship belonging to any local faction which isn't the authority, and isn't anarchic. This is an improvement. On the other hand, you will lose the rep from the superpowers that you were getting from those generic bounties, but as has been explained, they were not working properly and were resulting in bizarre results that incidentally screwed over players who were trying to support independent factions. Which leads to:
Regarding influence - Because those generic superpower bounties were throwing influence around wrongly, superpower aligned factions were getting influence out of proportion to the bounties claimed. It was also spreading the influence in silly ways. This completely screwed over independent factions which shared space with superpower ones. As a supporter of independent factions, these changes level the playing field for me. So this is literally the complete opposite of a nerf for me.
I also like that now, I will be able to pick and choose which bounties I can hand in to the factions who issued them (i.e. the ones for the factions I'm trying to support), and then go to an Interstellar Factor and still get some money from the other bounties (from factions I don't want to support) but not give them any influence.
I can do all of this in a PvE setting.
I also see that quite a few other people like the changes too.
Claiming "we're all agreed it's a nerf to current KWS usage in a PvE setting" is almost grotesquely wrong.
repped for the good summary
you just didn't include that now additional NPC can be legally shot down, that previously could not.
there are those "clear" NPCs that you can scan with the KWS, you reveal a bounty (that you only see in the contacts list and is not written into the journal so i can have it tts read to me),
but they are currently remain "not wanted".
in 3.0 you have chance that the KWS scan will make ships wanted, without them opening fire on you. (yay for defending yourself against a bounty hunter NPC)
1. If you're trading/exploring, nope, don't see why you would mount a KWS - isn't this true of the old system as well as the new? I personally wouldn't stop to KWS a ship that interdicted me if I was in a trade or exploration ship in the current live game.
2. The new KWS is definitely more easily managed than the current live one as regards rep gain/loss. Currently, if you kill a Wanted ship belonging to anyone other than the ruling faction in a system, you lose rep with them. This means your reps with other minor factions go down, even as you gain rep with the ruling faction for killing Wanted criminals in their space. That's something you have to keep track of now in the live game. One of the changes to the new KWS is that if you use it on a Wanted ship that doesn't belong to the ruling faction, it removes that rep loss. You've officially connected to local law enforcement and told them you have found a ship which is Wanted in the system, followed all the protocol, and basically the local minor faction that owned the ship goes, "aw shucks, he may work for us, but he got caught, was confirmed as Wanted with a full KWS scan, all the paperwork filed... we can't really hold the commander who pulled the trigger responsible... damn that ruling faction!" The only exception is anarchy local factions, who don't care about protocols... you still lose rep with them as before. But the new system is definitely easier to handle regarding rep gain/loss. There'll just be less rep loss overall for you to keep track of. So your question of what good is it in a RES? It's practically the same, just easier. So it's not really any change to how you operate with a KWS now. It certainly doesn't give you more to worry about, which is what you seem to be saying.
Yes - under the new system, that is also possible. However, in practice, I'm not sure how often commanders will actually bother KWS scanning Clean ships to see if they turn Wanted. Honestly, I doubt that's going to happen much at all, though it's kind of cool that the possibility is there
For the most part, I think commanders using KWS only ever scan Wanted targets, so the effect is just going to be that they get a bunch of extra bounties of the same value as before... so not much practical change at all.
Right, I think I understand. However, I still don't understand why you want your rep with a faction to go up but you don't want the influence of the same faction to increase. You want their favour but you don't want to help them? If that's right then I find that odd, but I agree the current proposal will work for you! (even if it doesn't make sense to me).
He never said it was limited to 2MCr just that it becomes a superpower bounty when it exceeds 2MCr.
As for Powerplay etc yeah it seriously needs work to still be viable in the ED game.
How-ever, Sandro already stated that the PvE income from scans would be 'significantly reduced'.. Obviously you know more than him.
If there's no (or much) practicalchange at all, then it'll be easy to just leave it alone and let it work like it has since inception?
You're thinking of the Kill Warrant Scanner as this item that connects to some hypothetical galaxy-wide database of crime that all the factions are subscribed to maintaining and updating in real-time. Now I personally find the idea of such a database problematic (as I've said at length previously), but I know what you mean is that it could drive some sort of "bounty-hunting across lots of jurisdictions" gameplay.
So to start off - the KWS does not really drive that kind of gameplay in the current game. In case you're not aware, it turns out bounties were only ever generated for local factions. As an addition you can also reveal those generic superpower bounties (Federation/Empire/Alliance), but they weren't associated with a faction (and were having some undesirable influence-distorting effects as well, but we'll pass over that). These "lightweight Interstellar bounties" always seemed a bit broad and undefined... it always struck me that a bounty should come from a specific group... in other words a minor faction. There's more potential to build some sort of procedural narrative out of that, rather than a bland "Wanted in the Federation" one.
I spent some time driving around with a KWS in a RES in the current live game. Every single ship I scanned and killed only gave me bounties from minor factions in the system. Apparently, that's the way it has always worked. There were never bounties from factions outside the system (unless a faction had expanded into the system, in which case it just counts as local). I honestly think everyone who is curious about this should do the same thing and see for themselves - other than the Fed/Emp/Alliance generic bounties, you only see bounties from local factions. So that is how it works in the current live game.
Now I'm not trying to be facetious here - I want you to let go of the idea of a KWS as a galaxy-wide bounty-hunting tool for a moment, and seriously consider it simply being a tool that lets you connect to local law enforcement in a system (probably via the nav beacon using hyperspace comms), and reveal all the bounties from factions other than the ruling authority in the system (which is returning Wanted states and its own bounties from normal ship scans). It becomes essentially a tool for assisting local law enforcement. In game terms, it still allows you to get extra bounties to the same value of credits, they're just all from actual minor factions in the system now. In credit terms, there's no change, and you actually gain in terms of rep with local factions. You also have the option to hand in bounties to increase the influence of whichever factions you want to support now, and sell the rest to lowlife Interstellar Factors for those factions you don't want gaining influence. These all seem like improvements, and the only real loss is the superpower rep from the generic bounties, which were not working correctly and were causing problems... and you still get superpower rep, because you always get some superpower rep from claiming a bounty from a minor faction that is aligned to that superpower. The new KWS is still as useful as before, and it still gives you extra bounties and cash... just like the old system.
Now for the gameplay you're describing - a bounty hunt across jurisdictions... this actually exists in the current live game already. They are the Assassination missions. If you take one to eliminate Pirate Lords, then it is effectively an actual old-fashioned bounty hunt across jurisdictions. I did two of them two days ago. It almost always sends you to a different system to the one you got the mission in. You can even wake scan these targets if they flee and follow them, and engage them. And it also makes far more sense that the way it works is through the mission board - someone specific actually says "we want this person dead, we will give you X money if you do it", and then you go off and find that person and kill them. This honestly sounds more like bounty-hunting to me. There's nothing in the words "Kill Warrant Scanner" that implies it must specifically be for galaxy wide bounty hunting. I think that was the original intent, but the more I think about it, making it a local law enforcement tool is eminently sensible... because in those existing Assassination missions, you are already being paid a lot extra - often millions... that is what the mission reward often is. That is the actual bounty you are claiming, not the piddly bounties they've received for whatever local crimes they've committed in whatever system you found them in.
In the future, we have been told the idea is to refine the 'across jurisdictions bounty-hunting' gameplay with things like tracking limpets. Now at first glance, this seems like a really good way to go. It allows the game to 'save' an NPC target (or a Commander even), if you have the intent and skill to attach a tracking limpet to their ship. This seems like a much better way of doing things. Using in-universe and in-game tools, you can instruct the game that you want to specifically 'keep' an NPC persistent, and there is an element of player skill involved too since you have to successfully attach the limpet in the first place. Now, maybe we can be snarky and say, these are hypothetical tools that don't exist yet, when exactly will we get them? ... but stepping back, if that's what they're aiming for, I actually like that idea. If elements of the game are going to improve, then things are going to have to change sometimes. And if that means the KWS becomes a local law enforcement tool, then I'm okay with that, trying to take the broad view, and keeping in mind that it basically only ever revealed local bounties anyway. Because it actually doesn't change the rewards much (if it works as advertised) and in game mechanic terms it's actually a lot better (being able to selectively influence which factions in a system you want, which you might not care about, but some of us really, really do!). If you used it before, you don't actually lose much by continuing to use it, and you gain in a lot of other ways. There is no schrodinger's bounty, because there never were any to reveal - just those Fed/Emp/All ones which need removing anyway because they basically didn't work correctly, and they're being replaced with the same value of local bounties. It still reveals local crimes against factions that aren't the ruling one, which apparently is what it always did.
Does that make sense?
Incidentally, NPC's can earn bounties - they just tend to be the same ones we players earn and aren't worth bothering about. I've been attacked by a previously Clean NPC ship, and it changed to Wanted... with a 400Cr assault bounty, exactly the bounty I earn when I accidentally (or intentionally) hit a Clean ship myself. When a bounty is less than the cost of the ammo I'm going to use claiming it, it seems more sensible to just leave.
Where did he say that?
StefanOS
Volunteer Moderator
I think he said that before he made the change that the KWS will give you permission to attack and collect every bounty of the same Superfraction of the current star system
I would like very, very much for you to point out where Sandro stated that, because in this very thread, he has stated the exact opposite:
As for the 'no practical change', I was replying to someone who mentioned the fact KWS scans can potentially turn previously Clean NPCs to Wanted. I was saying that, yes, that's true, but for the commanders who only ever scan Wanted targets and don't care about rep and influence, they likely won't care. There is 'no practical change' for them.
For someone who does care about influence, and bounty hunts to support minor factions, and also wants to minimise loss of rep from non-ruling factions, the changes are an improvement. For someone, like me, who supports independent minor factions, this is a vast improvement.
You're welcome to be as snide as you like, but I suggest you don't spread misinformation and selectively quote people to make them sound like they were saying the opposite of what they meant. It just makes you sound dishonest and discredits everything you say.
Not from what I remember. I seem to distincitly remember reading that they could increase the bounties NPC's have to make sure things are better balanced.
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