Bounties and hot modules status

Groman

Groman
Hi there Commanders,

I was reluctant to start a new thread for this but after reading several posts, I can't find my specific issue.

Basically, some of my ship's modules stay hot, even after clearing my bounty at Interstellar Factors.
Here is the breakdown.

1. Get a small bounty of a few hundred credits
2. Store modules while bounty is active
3. Clear your bounty through Interstellar Factors
4. It is now impossible to re-equip the "hot" modules, fair enough
5. Get a new bounty (so those hot modules can be installed on the ship again)
6. Equip previous hot modules
7. Clear your bounty through Interstellar Factors, ship and modules are now showing clean in the outfitting menu
8. Store modules
9. See stored modules are now "hot" and unable to be equipped again

I expected after point 7, the modules should either stay marked as hot or not have a hot state anymore.
The current state is such that you don't know your modules are hot until after you have stored them and can't put them back on your ship because it is clean.

Note that the modules can be sold for their full price, no markdown due to the hot state.

I am wondering if I should create an issue/bug report for this or if someone has experienced that and can explain to me how it makes sense.

Thank in advance, fly safe, o7
 
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R4dioS1lence

R
There are a few other threads on this specifically, but most of the time the information is on threads related to C&P in general or other related stuff. Try searching for "handing yourself", "interstellar factors" and "impound" separately (not sure if the search engine can search individual threads, I only see results as posts, my forum-fu is lacking).

That does sound like a bug. If the ship was cleaned, any module removed from it should be clean. If it isn't, then that seems a de-sync with server and it not catching up that you cleaned the ship and thus turning the stored module hot. Have you tried to pay the cleaning fee on these modules, or logging out and in back again between steps 7 and 8 or after step 9?

The idea of the whole setup is that when a ship is hot, you have the re-buy of the ship as a cost to be paid for the crime. Paying off the bounties evade that re-buy cost, but costs you 25% extra (depending on the value of the re-buy and the value of the bounty, you're either overpaying or underpaying compared to what you would by suicide/handing yourself). Hot modules prevent us from cheating down the price of re-buys by dumping all expensive stuff and paying a low priced re-buy. Hot ships and re-buys also come into play when you have multiple hot ships but hand yourself on a clean ship (hot ships get impounded).
 

Groman

Groman
R4dioS1lence said:
There are a few other threads on this specifically, but most of the time the information is on threads related to C&P in general or other related stuff. Try searching for "handing yourself", "interstellar factors" and "impound" separately (not sure if the search engine can search individual threads, I only see results as posts, my forum-fu is lacking).

That does sound like a bug. If the ship was cleaned, any module removed from it should be clean. If it isn't, then that seems a de-sync with server and it not catching up that you cleaned the ship and thus turning the stored module hot. Have you tried to pay the cleaning fee on these modules, or logging out and in back again between steps 7 and 8 or after step 9?

The idea of the whole setup is that when a ship is hot, you have the re-buy of the ship as a cost to be paid for the crime. Paying off the bounties evade that re-buy cost, but costs you 25% extra (depending on the value of the re-buy and the value of the bounty, you're either overpaying or underpaying compared to what you would by suicide/handing yourself). Hot modules prevent us from cheating down the price of re-buys by dumping all expensive stuff and paying a low priced re-buy. Hot ships and re-buys also come into play when you have multiple hot ships but hand yourself on a clean ship (hot ships get impounded).
Click to expand...
Hey, thanks for the suggestions.

I've read a lot about Interstellar Factors and a bit about the rest as well.
I understand that handing yourself is usually not a good idea so when I get a mission that incurs a fine or bounty, I usually go straight away to IF to clear whatever I have.
I have that issue for a few days now, I'm currently trying to fly that ship with the "hidden" hot modules, they don't show the "legal issue" icon but I know if I put them in storage, they will be flagged as "legal issue".

When you mention re-buy, you mean if I get destroyed with the bounty on me? I haven't tried that and will avoid unless there is no other way.
I will try what you suggested, i.e. logout and login between steps 7 and 8.
I am trying to avoid paying the cleaning fee as it is many times more the bounty of 600cr I had when that happened.
I've cleaned one of the module and it worked so if the modules are hot again after going to storage, I might have to resort to that.

If that doesn't work, I will try making a request with support, see what they say about it.

Cheers
 
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R4dioS1lence

R
Groman said:
I understand that handing yourself is usually not a good idea so when I get a mission that incurs a fine or bounty, I usually go straight away to IF to clear whatever I have.
Click to expand...
Basically, handing yourself incurs the value of the bounty plus the value of the re-buy for all ships (stored ones included) that you have which also have bounties tied to them from that faction you're handing yourself over to. If you hand yourself in a ship that doesn't have bounties tied to it, you don't pay the re-buy for that ship upon handing yourself, but ships that have bounties from that faction tied to them still do get impounded, and require you paying a re-buy for them in order to keep using them.

Also, keep in mind that getting scanned for bounties by authorities while flying a clean ship but having bounties on you (you switched to another clean ship or got bounties on foot) will tie your bounties to that ship.

Since interstellar factors overcharge by 25% of the value of the bounty, if the re-buy for wanted ships is lower than 25% of the value of the bounties, it costs less to hand yourself. If you don't mind the travel from prison back to where you're operating, handing yourself will be easier. If an Interstellar Factor is close to you and the extra costs aren't a problem, using them is easier. Since you have low value bounties, find an IF near you and stick to it. For lower bounties on values like yours, Interstellar Factors will be better.

Groman said:
I have that issue for a few days now, I'm currently trying to fly that ship with the "hidden" hot modules, they don't show the "legal issue" icon but I know if I put them in storage, they will be flagged as "legal issue".
Click to expand...
If the ship isn't flagged as hot, unequipped modules shouldn't be flagged with legal issue. I recommend you try using it and unequipping modules from it. Do take screenshots before selecting the ship (to show the ship is clean) and the module being flagged as hot after being unequipped to provide that for Support, plus screenshot of your bounties. You can also submit bugs to the Issue Tracker at https://issues.frontierstore.net/

Groman said:
When you mention re-buy, you mean if I get destroyed with the bounty on me? I haven't tried that and will avoid unless there is no other way.
Click to expand...
Re-buy can be also incurred either from handing yourself on a station from that faction (if you can dock without getting flagged by authorities and attacked) or via impounding of ships that you aren't flying when caught by authorities (getting destroyed by the faction that had a bounty on you or by handing yourself).
 

Groman

Groman
R4dioS1lence said:
Basically, handing yourself incurs the value of the bounty plus the value of the re-buy for all ships (stored ones included) that you have which also have bounties tied to them from that faction you're handing yourself over to. If you hand yourself in a ship that doesn't have bounties tied to it, you don't pay the re-buy for that ship upon handing yourself, but ships that have bounties from that faction tied to them still do get impounded, and require you paying a re-buy for them in order to keep using them.

Also, keep in mind that getting scanned for bounties by authorities while flying a clean ship but having bounties on you (you switched to another clean ship or got bounties on foot) will tie your bounties to that ship.

Since interstellar factors overcharge by 25% of the value of the bounty, if the re-buy for wanted ships is lower than 25% of the value of the bounties, it costs less to hand yourself. If you don't mind the travel from prison back to where you're operating, handing yourself will be easier. If an Interstellar Factor is close to you and the extra costs aren't a problem, using them is easier. Since you have low value bounties, find an IF near you and stick to it. For lower bounties on values like yours, Interstellar Factors will be better.


If the ship isn't flagged as hot, unequipped modules shouldn't be flagged with legal issue. I recommend you try using it and unequipping modules from it. Do take screenshots before selecting the ship (to show the ship is clean) and the module being flagged as hot after being unequipped to provide that for Support, plus screenshot of your bounties. You can also submit bugs to the Issue Tracker at https://issues.frontierstore.net/


Re-buy can be also incurred either from handing yourself on a station from that faction (if you can dock without getting flagged by authorities and attacked) or via impounding of ships that you aren't flying when caught by authorities (getting destroyed by the faction that had a bounty on you or by handing yourself).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation.

I will avoid removing modules in the future and clear my bounties before swapping ships so this mess don't happen again.

I opened a support request to investigate if this is by design or not, I'll update here when I get a reply.
 

Shadowsnog

Shadowsnog
i dont know how about you, but i have the option to pay off the 'modules bounty' when outfitting hot module to clean ship...
 

Groman

Groman
Shadowsnog said:
i dont know how about you, but i have the option to pay off the 'modules bounty' when outfitting hot module to clean ship...
Click to expand...
Yes, this is available to me as well but the amount is magnitude higher per module compared to the original bounty. I believe it is a fixed percentage of the module's value regardless of the bounty.

The issue I want to address here is the module becoming hot again without any warning while the ship is clean.
 

Groman

Groman
This is what I got from support and I think is an important warning if you want to store hot modules and are unaware of the consequences.
Step 2 is what I believe to have initially triggered this issue because the hot modules are likely associated to a specific bounty so they'd stay hot even if you've cleared another bounty.
We'd recommend not to store the hot modules in the future and to prioritize in getting the initial bounty cleared first with all hot modules equipped.
Click to expand...
What I understand here is even if I clear a bounty but the modules were hot from a different, previous bounty, this will not be cleared and now impossible to clear without paying the module cleaning fee.
I think it would be interesting to try to get a bounty from the same faction that issued the original bounty, to see if the module bounty is faction bound or something else.
Unfortunately I did not remember in my case.

In summary: Don't try to clear hot modules by getting a new bounty and clearing this bounty with the hot modules equipped.
Although the modules will look clean on your ship, they will switch to "legal issue" once stored off your ship.
 
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