Bounty Hunter progression question

[spacejumbofudge]

Is there anyway to progress as a bounty hunter? It's my main activity but I'm getting bored of fighting sidewinders and cobras.

Stuff I do:

-go to a RES in a fed system and fight pirates (mostly cobras, if it gives me sidewinders I tend to leave and come back).
-interdict wanted's in Frameshift (again mostly only find eagles and the like)
-nav beacons, sometimes get different ships but often just lots of waiting and nothing.
-anarchy systems, do see some toughter stuff sometimes here but I don't seem to have a reproducible way of finding it.

I haven't really done the ~180k elite anaconda assasination missions as I've only just got to the point where I feel I'll win that in my cobra.

Aside from finding the fighting starting to get easy and dull, the other problem is my costs are now quite high. Costs 250k to replace my cobra. So if I spend and hour or two killing people and earn a few hundred k then collide with a ship I can suddenly be down for hours of play.

I'm up to expert, I guess I'd like the game to start throwing more elite and valuable bounties my way. It's actually quite fun fighting the more skilled NPCs, but you seem to get so few of them. The average pirate NPC is no threat at all.

Are there systems or activities I'm not aware of that could throw a challenge at me and a bit more cash to go with it?

 

[CMDR Brock Samson]

I suggets you go after those 180k Elite Condas.if you don't feel too confident, turn your "report crimes against me" on.
Authority ships will jump in and help distracting your target.Good luck!

 

[spacejumbofudge]

Yeah I will try those next time one is offered, but is that it, nothing else to do?

I'm also up to warrant officer with the Feds and have been suprised how little combat they've thrown my way. I had one promotion mission early on fighting a major in a dropship, that was fun. Aside from that all they ever want is a ton or two of weapons or meds. I'm sure in frontier and first encounters most fed missions were combat or sometimes the secret base photo ones that involved combat.

What we need is a lot more assassination type missions with a range of target types and a range of rewards.

Another quick win would be a 'defend this place/ship/station' and just copy and paste the incursion tutorial into it. You fly somewhere and fight a succession of harder targets, maybe with different reward tiers for how many you defeat before running.

They could also add pirate bases in pirate systems, where everyone has a bounty by default and there will be more and tougher ships.

I know it's early days for this game, but I'm tempted to just get a cargo ship and switch to that for a while until they add more mission content.

 

[spacejumbofudge]

I realised my post had turned more into suggestions than a question, so wrote something in the suggestion forum: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=91486&p=1428160#post1428160

 

[Cmdr_Arri]

-nav beacons, sometimes get different ships but often just lots of waiting and nothing.

Make sure you're in a high-population system. I have not experienced any waiting in a high-pop system at a nav beacon. It's been mentioned before that if you enter super-cruise and come back to the nav beacon (or resource extraction site, for that matter), it will spawn different ships.

I know it's early days for this game, but I'm tempted to just get a cargo ship and switch to that for a while until they add more mission content.

You've already got a cargo ship. Your Cobra has more cargo space than any other ship before it. The ship with the next largest cargo area is the Lakon Type 6 Transporter, and it's 1 million credits.

I also wasn't making as much money bounty hunting in my Cobra as I would like, so I started hauling rares. I made around 1.3 million credits in just one round-trip. A couple more trips and my Cobra will be maxed out, and ready for more bounty hunting.

My Cobra is currently set up for bounty hunting, but I still have 40T of cargo space available. So, why not haul some rares also? Mix it up a little bit. Do a couple rounds of hauling, do some bounty hunting.

 

[Cabinbaby]

I know you have made a new suggestion thread but going back to the original question. It's obviously not 100% of the time but if you go to an anarchy system and fly about looking for unidentified signal sources you can get lots of interesting situations with pirate groups or pirate anacondas being engaged by security services. Can be good to mix up your playing. It's not as good cash as farming at a nav beacon but it's sure fun to fight off an anaconda and his wingmen.

 

[Cmdr_Arri]

I personally find it more profitable bounty hunting in Federal space as once the Feds start shooting, you already know the other ship is wanted. Not to mention when you get multiple Fed ships fighting a large Python or Conda, you can just jump right in and get that large sum of money.

 

[spacejumbofudge]

You've already got a cargo ship. Your Cobra has more cargo space than any other ship before it. The ship with the next largest cargo area is the Lakon Type 6 Transporter, and it's 1 million credits.

I've already spent millions and millions on my cobra so a million for a type 6 won't be a problem. I'll give the high pop-nav beacon a try.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

I know you have made a new suggestion thread but going back to the original question. It's obviously not 100% of the time but if you go to an anarchy system and fly about looking for unidentified signal sources you can get lots of interesting situations with pirate groups or pirate anacondas being engaged by security services. Can be good to mix up your playing. It's not as good cash as farming at a nav beacon but it's sure fun to fight off an anaconda and his wingmen.

Not entirely sure I've spent much time in anarchy USS... I'll give that a try too.

I hope people can see these are all much of a muchness in terms of options and the stuff I suggested would be a quick win to beefing up this part of the game.