Vanishing bounties

Seven Stars · Sep 21, 2022

I've been bounty hunting in Skellar with my Vulture and living to tell the tale! However, even though I'm equipped with a Kill Warrant Scanner, some of the bounties I win aren't acknowledged or paid. The only ones honored are those from in-system, and those from another faction I'm allied with. When I kill a ship, I see a bounty value acknowledged in my hud; but it never shows up in my transactions. And it's never acknowledged or paid. Is it possible that my KWS is not working well?? It's the bare minimum. When I scan a target, I see the scan indicator in my hud moving and showing complete, but maybe I'm out of range. You'd think the scanner would indicate it didn't get a successful scan, if that were the case.

Any wisdom on this?

Codger · Sep 21, 2022

It's been an age since I did this, but don't you have to turn in the bounties to the issuing faction, wherever that is? Or find an IF and take the 25% surcharge?

Mrc_NorthEast · Sep 21, 2022

If the bounties are from a faction not in the system you 'cash out' in. Yes then you have to find a IF (interstellar factor), I use Inara find nearest to locate them and then you get 75% of the total when you cash out with them. Last time I tried a Kws for bounties was a few months back, but it worked then in EDH. Before your next couple of kills look at your transaction tab totals before and after the kill it should be counting them. And if you have been really busy, you might have to scroll all the way down to see all the totals for all the various factions and the bond payout amounts. Make sure to cash out the local bounties in system so you get the full amount for them. Then if you have bounties left over for not in system factions then you go to the IF, but you only get 75% of the total. If you forget and cash out everything at an IF, you could only get 75% of a much bigger total, best not to do that.

If it says complete on your KWS, the scan on that targeted ship is done, and if you get credited for the kill you will get all the bounties. Are you alone when you are bounty hunting? Or are the system authorities or other bounty hunting NPC's/Cmdr's around to potential get the credit and the bounty amounts? You want to be alone, or alone with system security and you want to get the final killing blow, or be hitting them often enough so that you get the bounties.

Nepeta Uchiha · Sep 21, 2022

FYI, Odyssey broke the Administrative Contact where you can turn in bounties from any faction anywhere so no need to go to a system with said faction or to an Interstellar Factors. Now Odyssey is also busted when it comes to issuing bounty vouchers where I think anything over a million isn't counted.

Seven Stars · Sep 21, 2022

I'm really beginning to think this is a bug. I kill a wanted ship, the kill and a bounty amount show up in my upper right hand HUD. But it does not show up in the Transactions panel and is never visible in either a station's Admin Contact, nor any Interstaller Factor.

Ned Flandalorian · Sep 21, 2022

If you want people to confirm/deny if it's really a bug, best to post what platform and version of the game you're playing.

Seven Stars · Sep 22, 2022

Good reminder! Horizons 4.0 on PC. I'm in VR but that shouldn't make any difference. Problem only appeared since switching from 3.8 to 4.0. I experimented further with no luck. I upgraded the Kill Warrant Scanner, made sure to complete scans (sometimes twice), but still only being credited with bounties for ships from in-system alliances (eg. in Skeller, only East India Trading Co ships and various local Skellar factions. I've tried this in different systems with similar results. Flying an engineered Vulture and hunting in various RES sites.

cmdr milesred · Sep 22, 2022

have you looked in the log? it is the only place you get a report of what bounties a kill gets besides the transaction screen.
meaning there is no other way to see bounties from outside that system until they do show on the transaction tab.

not much of a test, but after 6 kills, I have bounties for 5 different factions. each kill was 1 to 3 bounties each. all showed up on the transactions tab.

as for the KWS, from my experience it either works or it does not. with or without, you still should get 1 bounty for the faction that controls the system you are in(unless it is anarchy system) and kws makes no diff in the bounty size for that faction or any other. all it does is gets you any other outstanding bounties for that target.

so, yeh. if you are not getting any bounty at all, you have a bug of some sort.
got free space on the drive? heh
P.S. even though I put a stupid laugh there, if the game showed the hud with me getting a bounty and it did not show in transactions, the hard drive and the log are the first 2 things I would inspect.
if it can't write for some reason it could also be throwing an error for the game that you aren't seeing.
it should crash, bet then ...who knows.
either way, I would run some disk tools to make sure the drives are in good shape.
this is far more important if you are on a laptop and no windows tools can fix all hard-drive errors, but should suffice.

goemon · Sep 22, 2022

you are not encountering the bug where you have bounties to redeem with faction empty, do you? i remember having that some month ago.

Seven Stars · Sep 26, 2022

FWIW, the problem turned out to be binding the KWS as well as a pulse laser to the same trigger. Somehow that screws up logging some bounties. Once I move the KWS to another fire group, the problem went away. Curious because I've seen some "experts" on youtube videos with that configuration (KWS and weapon in same firegroup and trigger).

cmdr milesred · Sep 26, 2022

yes, like everyone that uses a kws...
pretty sure that isn't the cause.
it makes no sense
mine is bound to every firegroup so that it is always there. on the ships that use it.

as long as you saw a bounty on your hud from a kill, it is in your transactions tab. if not, there is a bug affecting it. clearly the game knows you got a kill and a reward.

although pulse laser is something I actually do not use, so if it is directly related, still a bug.

Codger · Sep 26, 2022

Seven Stars said:
FWIW, the problem turned out to be binding the KWS as well as a pulse laser to the same trigger. Somehow that screws up logging some bounties. Once I move the KWS to another fire group, the problem went away. Curious because I've seen some "experts" on youtube videos with that configuration (KWS and weapon in same firegroup and trigger).

Perhaps the scan isn't always finishing when bound to the same key as the laser, because you don't hold it down long enough? Other than that, I don't know.