Let's say you can pick up to ten different CMDRs as targets and every time they are online and not in an Anarchy you get updated on their location. Would that improve things?
Would you mind if bounty hunting involved more than farming NPCs at a RES?
- Thread starter babelfisch
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Let's say you can pick up to ten different CMDRs as targets and every time they are online and not in an Anarchy you get updated on their location. Would that improve things?
I like RES farming as it is now. I find it relaxing.
If talking about RES, I really don't like that system security practically sweeps in and deals final blow in very short time. While it is mostly one to one dogfighting, there's rarely even that because help arrives quite soon.
But as place of combat RES is big example of doing things right.
It is really mixed bag....
I guess I would like to see just more fleshed out opportunities with bounty hunting via gathering knowledge. RES could still exist, but decreased NPC spawns, and a bit more logical flow.
But as place of combat RES is big example of doing things right.
It is really mixed bag....
I guess I would like to see just more fleshed out opportunities with bounty hunting via gathering knowledge. RES could still exist, but decreased NPC spawns, and a bit more logical flow.
Haz RES do actually resolve this issue quite nicely. No police, just you and whatever you can get your guns on.
That said I'm not confident enough in my skills to take a plain, unengineered ship in there for too long.
I feel res farming should remain a viable source of income. Someones gotta protect those miners right? I also think actual bounty hunting could be improved. Better ways to track bounties?
Why does one thing have to be removed so that another thing can be implemented?
The stuff that happens at RES's seems fairly plausible to me.
It's a recognised area of high concentrations of mineral ore which is what causes miners to go there and that, in turn, causes criminals to go there too.
Might be nice if FDev could improve the stuff that goes on there so that, perhaps, you had outlaw ships firing off hatchbreakers and lawful ships requesting assistance etc.
It also might be nice if there could be specific missions related to RES's too, to give you more of a reason to go there aside from opportunism.
Overall, though, it's a solid enough bit of gameplay.
Course, I'd love to see BHing expanded in other ways.
When I first bought my FdL I had visions of acting like Boba Fett in ED; chasing criminals across the galaxy and then bringing them to justice (or whoever was prepared to pay me).
If FDev could come up with gameplay that allowed for this, I'd be all over it like a rat up a drainpipe.
For starters, how about a "holding cell" module?
When you BH a ship it ejects an escape pod, you collect it and it goes into the holding cell.
You then have to transport it back to whoever's going to pay you - and be prepared for other ships to try and get their buddy back on the way.
The stuff that happens at RES's seems fairly plausible to me.
It's a recognised area of high concentrations of mineral ore which is what causes miners to go there and that, in turn, causes criminals to go there too.
Might be nice if FDev could improve the stuff that goes on there so that, perhaps, you had outlaw ships firing off hatchbreakers and lawful ships requesting assistance etc.
It also might be nice if there could be specific missions related to RES's too, to give you more of a reason to go there aside from opportunism.
Overall, though, it's a solid enough bit of gameplay.
Course, I'd love to see BHing expanded in other ways.
When I first bought my FdL I had visions of acting like Boba Fett in ED; chasing criminals across the galaxy and then bringing them to justice (or whoever was prepared to pay me).
If FDev could come up with gameplay that allowed for this, I'd be all over it like a rat up a drainpipe.
For starters, how about a "holding cell" module?
When you BH a ship it ejects an escape pod, you collect it and it goes into the holding cell.
You then have to transport it back to whoever's going to pay you - and be prepared for other ships to try and get their buddy back on the way.
As far as making gameplay more emergant, I'd like the following:
Similar to the 10 most wanted CMDR's, I'd want a 10 most wanted NPC's with last 'official' known locations. Make the black market useful in that you can pay for more information on their whereabouts and buy clues on what they were hauling, looking for or sold, complete with pirate rep system (nobody talks to squeaky clean pretty boys, but dirty smugglers get the news). These NPC's would follow a somewhat randomly generated circuit, stop at pirate outposts, Buying weapons USS, smuggle stuff into stations, and maybe even if they were notorious enough have a pirate megaship or be into UA bombing.
Buying black market information could be very fun in that it could make a pirate career a thing (There's a bunch of LTD's, Painite, etc. coming in from XXXX on a purple nurple corp type 7 with 2 escorts, stuff like that).
These pirates would need to be tough enough to command a 5-15 mil bounty. Hard to find, harder to kill. Evasive, tough, calls for reinforcements, etc. Maybe even make it that you have to bring the pirate in alive (scoop an escape pod) to get paid.
Way more fun and challenge that high rez farming, or healy4feelize afk farming.
Similar to the 10 most wanted CMDR's, I'd want a 10 most wanted NPC's with last 'official' known locations. Make the black market useful in that you can pay for more information on their whereabouts and buy clues on what they were hauling, looking for or sold, complete with pirate rep system (nobody talks to squeaky clean pretty boys, but dirty smugglers get the news). These NPC's would follow a somewhat randomly generated circuit, stop at pirate outposts, Buying weapons USS, smuggle stuff into stations, and maybe even if they were notorious enough have a pirate megaship or be into UA bombing.
Buying black market information could be very fun in that it could make a pirate career a thing (There's a bunch of LTD's, Painite, etc. coming in from XXXX on a purple nurple corp type 7 with 2 escorts, stuff like that).
These pirates would need to be tough enough to command a 5-15 mil bounty. Hard to find, harder to kill. Evasive, tough, calls for reinforcements, etc. Maybe even make it that you have to bring the pirate in alive (scoop an escape pod) to get paid.
Way more fun and challenge that high rez farming, or healy4feelize afk farming.
Hordes of security stop showing up if you shut off report crimes. It's the only way a res is tolerable.
I'd also like mining to make more sense from the pirate's side in understanding threats and their own abilities. I've been mining in my corvette with full shields, hull and all turreted weapons except the mining lasers. Hey you stupid sidewinder, I'm not going to even look at you nor am I going to drop $90,000 worth of painite for you. You'll shoot at me and then get roasted. Even more than that, if they survive the first burst of fire with 4% hull, you'll make another pass at me when I'm not pursuing.
I'll get annoyed because I might lose a limpet chasing down your focus crystals instead of collecting Painite.
There needs to be a firepower threat modifier in the AI, and they need to fear big ships.
I'll get annoyed because I might lose a limpet chasing down your focus crystals instead of collecting Painite.
There needs to be a firepower threat modifier in the AI, and they need to fear big ships.
This is a double-edged sword. While peeps with lots of experience and full kitted combat ships, might welcome such detailed missions, those without, those starting, those not so rolling in the credits, still rely on RES sites to provide their combat rank and for some credits. Are to simply ignore those players? Are we to ignore all those without Horizons? Are to ignore those who just cannot be bothered to do all the fluff to get access to engineers?
It's not a simple matter of saying 'well it's their choice'.... For sure it is their choice, and their choice is to not play your way or my way, their choice is to play their way. It tells them to do that on the tin.
What I would whole-heartedly agree with/to is a separate mechanic for those looking for more in-depth combat. I've said it for years! There should be something separate to the RES sites. FDev have continually raised the level of NPCs in the RES sites with little thought that the players cannot match it. Those of us with billions who can built Combat Vettes and Cutters are fine and dandy. Not so much the lone FDL facing a 3 wing of Deadly or higher NPCs.
Let's be honest here; The wing mechanic is abused to death by FDev. 1 Big ship and usually 2 small fast agile ships. The agile ships usually have endless ammo and tear through any non-engineered ship. It is unfair to expect anyone not-engineered, to be able to take on those wings, yet... FDev expect it.
Anyways, OT, yes, we need new combat mechanics, but... Current combat is so broken, and has been so for months, that I hold little faith in the ability of FDev to produce anything better.
This was an idea I posted to the Suggestion Board ages ago. The current system isn't true bounty hunting to me, more like being an old West frontier-style posse/vigilante. Which is fine, except that RES's seem to serve no other useful function (have said elsewhere that I would like RES's to be centered around specific, potentially destructable mining assets....but I digress).
The 3 forms of Bounty Hunting I had in mind was via the "Most Wanted" board, as you mentioned. Select one as your bounty target, & they become semi-persistent until you manage to destroy them.
The second type is that you can scan a target-in or out of super cruise-with your KWS &, if wanted in any system, you can mark them as quarry & be alerted to their presence in any system you scan from then onwards (again, they will be effectively persistent until you bring them to ground).
The final type technically isn't bounty hunting, but I am counting it here. Any vessel you have come across-particularly if you "wronged" them-will become an ongoing nemesis for your commander. They will be a persistent, tier 2 NPC, & will continue to improve at roughly the same rate as you do.....& they can hunt *you*. They may even recruit others to help them take you down
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I'd quite like bounty hunting to be actual bounty hunting. When I think of bounty hunters I'm thinking Boba Fett or Greedo, painstakingly tracking down their quarry across the galaxy.
Thing is, it should really be added to the game on top of what we already have.
For me, there's a place for the current res site gameplay but it's not bounty hunting. It should be mission-based, for the controlling faction in the system and basically be considered freelance augmentation of the system security force in patrolling extraction sites to provide protection. Shift the payout to a mission-based system, or have the player sign up for duty at the controlling station and then pay them based on number of kills.
Haz res sites could stay as they are since the whole point is that there's no security; maybe they could be 'unofficial' off-the-radar locations where miners have heard rumors of vast deposits of ores, which would also preserve res sites other purpose as a location where miners can get higher yields from asteroids. Those locations will attract the most notorious pirates in a system and so still provide bounty payouts purely because the pirates there are likely to have bounties on them, but the amounts would be relatively low.
Bounty hunting should be a specific activity where you are given a contract much like the 'kill pirate lord' missions are now. Make the gameplay more focused on the hunt, requiring something more than 'go to location X and scan beacon Y to get some information that could just have been included in this mission text were it not for the fact we want the mission to take longer'. Payouts to be accordingly greater since you'd be spending more time tracking your target.
In short, bounty hunting should really only be focused on pewpew at the end of a process. Pewpew is fine but there are plenty of ways to get a quick hit of it - bounty hunting should really be more than that if it's to be considered a 'career option'.
(Edit: By the way if anybody should happen to read that and think 'but...but Red, how does this square with your opinion on honk scanning?' ask me in one of the 18,000 threads about that or even by PM and I'll be happy to answer but let's not derail this thread with it.)
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To be fair, for my second type of Bounty Hunting to work, you'd need some serious improvements in how our Manifest & Kill Warrant Scanners work. Limited Super-Cruise functionality, for starters, & the ability to do varying levels of scan (low power, medium power, high power). Of course, the flip-side is that targets of scans would need more options for "dropping off of the radar", so to speak.
Something like that. Say they’re wanted by a faction or power, maybe if they have a high bounty you can buy a letter of marquis for them (so you can shoot them in systems they’re not wanted in without alerting the feds), and in exchange they give you access to their location information and the bounty once the deed is done. Maybe it starts with ‘last known in x system’ when they come on, then when you get there it’ll alert you to their next location etc until you catch up ‘CMDR last seen in current system’ with a mission marker on them perhaps.
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Bounty "hunting" would include finding, tracking and finally bringing the target to justice... At least for me. The different scanners we have, would allow for a much cooler gameplay cycle, instead of just waiting for prey in my opinion.
A bounty board in stations, where people offer financial opportunities to bring down certain individuals would be very nice. Your bounty "mission" could then include finding clues about the whereabouts, maybe find habits of the target of hanging around at specific stations or other places and then going there and doing the job. Maybe you can follow a trace of parked hot ships or anonymous station logins... Something for the wits and the brain, before you deploy hardpoints.
So yes, i am totally with the OP. Bounty hunting can be a lot more and so can be pirating and smuggling. But as we see some of our roles being improved in the next update, i am pretty sure, that the other ingame professions will see some love in the not so far future as well. Go Frontier
A bounty board in stations, where people offer financial opportunities to bring down certain individuals would be very nice. Your bounty "mission" could then include finding clues about the whereabouts, maybe find habits of the target of hanging around at specific stations or other places and then going there and doing the job. Maybe you can follow a trace of parked hot ships or anonymous station logins... Something for the wits and the brain, before you deploy hardpoints.
So yes, i am totally with the OP. Bounty hunting can be a lot more and so can be pirating and smuggling. But as we see some of our roles being improved in the next update, i am pretty sure, that the other ingame professions will see some love in the not so far future as well. Go Frontier
I'm in agreement with bounty hunting here; it's absolutely absurd how RES sites work and that they are so full of pirates, which ought to be *rare* occurences at such locations.
Bounty hunting ought to involve tracking down pirates to their dens and gathering places, and fighting them there; it ought to involve finding leads and browsing "Wanted" lists posted regularly by the Pilot Federation; it ought to resemble nothing like the current instance-flipping fish-in-a-barrel nonsense we have currently and have had for the past 4 years.
It's a regularly disappointing, disgruntling thought whenever I contemplate RES's and how *centric* it's become to "doing combat in Elite". Even CNBs are slightly more plausible....
Indeed. If Bounty hunting was more centered arround tracking NPC's and taking down pirate lairs and well armed goons it'll be more interesting.
RES could also easily be improved, for example pirates might come in wings more often and call for backup / flee to a hidding spot to repair, then maybe go
after the player. It would be way more interesting than the fish-in-a-barrel gameplay we have now.
RES feel more like 3D space invaders than space Bounty hunting.
For those who want to keep the current RES mechanics it seems they mostly want some quick pew pew action, which is understandable. Wouldn't it make more sense to add a different system that allows this kind of stuff? Like a tournament arena / The Running Man kind of thing? You could have various scenarios, fight against CMDRs or NPCs, get trophy money, become famous via galnet as best performer, have all sorts of interesting locations, etc. That would still give you some quick pew pew action but at least it makes sense lore wise.
1. You could do your hunting in supercruise rather than sitting in a RES. Wanted NPCs spawn there too.
2. FDev already put in smarter combat AI once and people freaked out because it was too hard.