Bounty values

[Goschti]

Hi there,

I was bounty hunting for a bit yesterday and was under the impression that the payouts have been reduced by a large margin. Shot some adders, cobras, eagles and so on.

The top bounty was a deadly adder with 8.9k. Most cobras where around 6-7k..... I made 57k in about 20 minutes. Which is much less than before. Even if there are more wanted targets to shoot at it seems.

Will be some long days until the FDL has payed for itself.

 

[Vandyl]

Hi there,

I was bounty hunting for a bit yesterday and was under the impression that the payouts have been reduced by a large margin. Shot some adders, cobras, eagles and so on.

The top bounty was a deadly adder with 8.9k. Most cobras where around 6-7k..... I made 57k in about 20 minutes. Which is much less than before. Even if there are more wanted targets to shoot at it seems.

Will be some long days until the FDL has payed for itself.

Strange, I have felt like it is the opposite. I don't have any hard data to compare it to as I don't usually bounty hunt, but rather submit to all interdictions and seems like the bounties have been higher than they used to be. Could be my imagination.

 

[Cmdr Fraggles]

Did some Nav Beacon firtling last night and bagged (amongst others):
1) Imperial Clipper: 39K
2) Asp: 25K
3) Cobra: 20K

I think you just got a tad unlucky, I don't think the bounties have been reduced.

 

[Whiterose]

Interdicted by an eagle, I got 8K for that. I agree that you may just have been unlucky. I wouldnt buy a lottery ticket this week lol.

 

[Liare]

it looks like, from what i tried out last night, that the Cobras have been replaced largely by Adders and Vipers and the Anacondas by Clippers while you will still get endless sidewinder streams at RES's.
only now, they come in wings of up to 4, and it's not always possible to guess what wing they are part of, adding a further element of risk to the equation for... reduced rewards ?

the net effect from what i have seen so far is : less credits a hour, for more risk and the only reasonable progression path from the Viper remains exchanging it for a Cobra or a Type 6 and trade, but then that's quite allright because pretty much all combat activities dont scale up further than the viper's capabilities anyway.

of course, i could have gotten a "bad" instance but results so far are less than encouraging.
why dont my combat rank apply a multiplier to the bounties or something ? why am i condemned to grind for the better part of 150 hours at current income rates for the next "upgrade" in the shape of the vulture ?

 

[TriumphANT]

It feels different, but I'm not sure how. Maybe just rebalanced a bit, e.g. a CLEAN Federal Dropship appeared at a Nav Beacon, but attacked an NPC Security Vessel. I took out the Dropship straight away without thinking. 400Cr bounty of course. I won't try to estimate the cost in MC ammo. But... I had a WANTED Deadly Sidewinder which gave a nice 9,000Cr bounty, and a Cobra which went above my expectations. 21,500Cr? Pretty high.

Oh, and I need a KWS again. No doubt that Dropship was worth 80,000Cr somewhere else!

 

[M4rt1n]

Oh come on. Bounty hunting got a massive buff. Just check out the RES spawns. Clippers, Condas, Pythons, Dropships, and swarms of them! You can easily make 1M+/hour, even in a Viper/Cobra, so there is no need to trade to get the bigger ships.

 

[Poseidal]

I got interdicted by an Asp with a high combat rating that had about 50k (split across two factions though). One of the highest values I've seen for an Asp recently.

 

[Liare]

Oh come on. Bounty hunting got a massive buff. Just check out the RES spawns. Clippers, Condas, Pythons, Dropships, and swarms of them! You can easily make 1M+/hour, even in a Viper/Cobra, so there is no need to trade to get the bigger ships.

except that doesn't match my experience so far, Cobras have largely been replaced by Adders with half the bounties, and Vipers, with roughly equal bounties, i didn't see a Anaconda in a res at all yesterday, but i did manage to get a single clipper and you still have hordes of sidewinders that aren't worth the ammunition spend on killing them as usual, i was out there for about an hour in a A kitted Viper.

net effect : income loss.

 

[chagnampra]

Oh come on. Bounty hunting got a massive buff. Just check out the RES spawns. Clippers, Condas, Pythons, Dropships, and swarms of them! You can easily make 1M+/hour, even in a Viper/Cobra, so there is no need to trade to get the bigger ships.

Yep, I agree - perfectly feasible to achieve 1mil / hour at RES spawns and Nav Points with the 1.2 update. A KWS is essential, though. Plus, switching to pulse lasers, which don't require ammo and aren't as power hungry as beam lasers, has been really useful for me.

 

[Quineloe]

'Deadly' Eagle is my favorite. 5k bounty.

Nice there, that's 20 counts of attempted murder. But you never actually killed anyone.

 

[Poseidal]

'Deadly' Eagle is my favorite. 5k bounty.

Nice there, that's 20 counts of attempted murder. But you never actually killed anyone.

The biggest question is how he got away in an Eagle. It's not like a Viper or Cobra where it could have been a hit & run.

 

[Darshendros the Eternal]

Got a couple nice RES instances with Anacondas, Pythons, Clippers all over the place. Easy 700-800k after like 30 mins if you're solo. If anything, bounty hunting got a lot better.

 

[M4rt1n]

except that doesn't match my experience so far, Cobras have largely been replaced by Adders with half the bounties, and Vipers, with roughly equal bounties, i didn't see a Anaconda in a res at all yesterday, but i did manage to get a single clipper and you still have hordes of sidewinders that aren't worth the ammunition spend on killing them as usual, i was out there for about an hour in a A kitted Viper.

net effect : income loss.

Believe me, if you see a nice RES instance you will notice it. If you see a bad one (hordes of adders, sidewinders), just leave and go to another RES (or the same one, or reload the instance by logging out/in again, but I dont like this method). Good instances are way more common than in previous patches, so you dont have to look for it forever. If you saw wanted clipper that is a good sign!

 

[Goschti]

Well, tried some again today with the same result. Perhaps I'm really just unlucky at the moment. I think I could pull more cr/h in a combat zone at the moment.

 

[Zephyriel]

Based on my experience and what I read, it's extremely random. There should be a way to predict where and in which system you could get big ships with juicy bounties. It's very tedious to fly to a RES or nav beacon, wait a long time for ships to spawn, then wait again until you find one with a bounty... What I noticed is that usually one instance either has only small ships, or only big ones. So basically, every time you exit supercruise, you play the lottery. Except that in the end, with all the things in between, if you have to go to 3 or 4 different places before you get some nice bounties, you easily waste one hour or more hardly making any money. Which isn't good when you can only play 1-2 hours sessions.

A possible solution would be to have so procedurally generated news when docked at a station, stating for example that pirate activity is extremely active in such or such sector, where miners have been complaining about getting attacked all the time. Such news would be in lore, and would constitute an immersive way to give bounty hunters some information about where they should go hunt. Bounty hunters should have the ability to hunt, that means to seek, find and destroy their targets, not just stumble upon them by chance. I can imagine a general news saying system X is rife with piracy. Then you fly to system X and dock at a station, where a local news entry says which area (RES around planet Y for example) is most criminally active.

 

[ShadowWolf Kell]

Did an RES last night at my usual spot and it was mostly Sidewinders and Eagles, with a few Adders and Cobras that were wanted. Lots of Type 7s and even 9s mining. I figured it'd have been great given it's an anarchy area with a pirate port in orbit. I'll have to check again later.

Decided to take some screenshots in another system that didn't have an M class star and just for grins went to an RES. Holy moley! Anacondas and Pythons galore. I made over 900k in under 20 minutes with my Viper. I didn't stick around long, I'd just gone for some quick screenshots but it was nice to see all those big ships flying around. Glad I've spent time killing them in Conflict Zones because the ones at the RES were like tissue paper in comparison. There was a Federal Anaconda with an 8+ Viper escort. They weren't in a wing but they did seem to stick near the Anaconda. I'm really glad I wasn't in my Cobra or Asp. It seemed like double the ships in a High Intensity Conflict Zone, with asteroids thrown into the mix. Got pretty intense but fun!

Aside from the rep loss(es), it might actually be a decent alternative to trading now. An A rated Viper is easily within the reach of pretty much anyone.