TL;DR:
Influence gain from bounties is bound to the sum of total bounties redeemed in system. The influence gained is not linear to total value, but has massively diminishing returns. Neither number of redeems, nor claims plays a role.
___
This thread looks at Bountyhunting in a similar way, than the more recent thread on trading, which you can find here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/trading-for-influence-ii-fc-update.555082/
It’s the third time i have looked into Bounty hunters influence gain after 2016 : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/a-guide-to-minor-factions-and-the-background-sim.193064/post-3721127 and 2017: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...-mechanic-and-bountyhunting-after-2-3.346177/ - and much has changed.
It will be necessary to retest all basic numbers in THIS thread, once FDEV includes the bounty buff numbers into the client (~ when on screen message and bountie vouchers match).
As previously i’ll note how you can test by yourself, so you don’t have to believe fancy graphs and others numbers only.
Thanks to the Canonn discord channel on minor factions for raising questions, second guessing and bouncing analysis!
I. A few definitions upfront:
“Redeem” refers to the act of redeeming Bounty Vouchers via Authority contact, aka “Transaction”.
“Claim” refers to the number of bountie voucher rewarded. Without use of a Kill-Warrant-Scanner, each killed wanted Sjhip generates 1 claim.
Influence “gain” or “gross” ("g") refers to the gain of influence of a faction before the actual influence-level is taken into account.
II. Caveats
- presumably down to the bounty-value-buff, the bounty report currently reports 99,1777 to 99,1779% of redeemed bounties minus npc crew pay.
- i have not fired my deadly ranked npc crew for this test, so if you reason, that FDEV takes bounty redeems minus npc-crew-cut into account (backed by the bounty report doing almost that), the values might be 9% lower.
- you can’t fine tune bounty values inputs as you can with e.g. trade, so it’s not possible to redeem exactly 1 mio bounties, you’ll redeem e.g. 1005087, and next time 1010168 to compare.
- the lower your input gets, and also the higher the factions starting influence is, the more it is prone to fdevs rounding to 4 digits in the journral.
- while all of this uses long-standing methods, it’s sure that fdev calculates influence different - and it is unknow how exactly they do it.
III. Tests
1. NOT transaction/number of redeems based
fig 1.
There is no Influence effect of redeeming bounties multiple times. To spell it ou: whether you redeem 2 times 500K, or 1 time 1 Mio CR has the same effect. It all gets added together.
Those here who might remember the times, when “redeem most often” had an effect will rejoice.
2. NOT claims based
fig. 2
There is no influence effect of number of ships killed for a bounty redeem - listed as “X Bounties were claimed” in the Bounty-Hunter report. So differently to combat rank, it is not necessarily more effective it to shoot elite eagles and sideys.
3. Total Bounty redeemed
As it is not redeems or claims based, influence effect is simply down to total bounties redeemed, albeit that is NOT linear:
fig. 3
You get >90% for 4,5 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
You get around 80% for 3 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
You get ~50% for 1 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
And you get ~20% for 350K (!) of what you get for ~8 Mio.
The most bang for your buck is at ~450K (but there is no reason not to redeem more, or less).
I haven’t tested beyond 9 Mio, as that’s the roundabout total voucher i get from a haz res session before needing to rearm.
Still it doesn’t look as if the curve is flatting out fully after that (but you’ll hit a max influence change cap at some point).
here a scatter plot of values <2 Mio:
fig. 4
4. Population Size
Redeeming Bounties has exactly the same effect in a small and a large population system before a presumed cap.
fig. 5
Which leads (as with trade) to the counterintuitive mechanic, that you simply will hit a max influence change cap faster in large population systems. In that sense a large population system moves as easy as a small one, just less.
fig. 6.
Numbers on max. inf change drawn from this excellent thread, which i haven’t retested:https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/influence-caps-gains-and-the-wine-analogy.423837/
5. Bounty Report
A Bounty report can be found at any station and looks like this:
- The Bounty Reports adds together redeems in system at Authority Contact, and, if present, Interstellar Factor, and, if present during redeem via FC Redemption Office.
- it does not discriminate between imported and in-system bounties.
- if you kill a wanted ship after KWS, and you get 2 bountie vouchers of it, redeeming those 2 vouchers will be listed as “2 Bounties were claimed”.
- as mentioned above, currently the Bounty reports is a tiny fraction low at ~99,17 of actual bounties redeemed, probably down to the way of FDEV “balancing” bounty payouts: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-2.559734/ ; also see: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-3.560418/
6. No influence effect of shooting wanted ships
- I have not found any influence effect of shooting wanted ships (at a scale of 20 ships)
What i haven’t tested:
- does the 25% fee of a redemption office reduce the influence effect to a value 25% lower? tested with update below 4.3.21
- does the deducted crew-pay reduces the influence effect to a value ~10% lower?
musings:
- I’m pretty sure, that those numbers have been the same before the bounty values buff - it’s now just very easy to get 350K to redeem, or 1 Mio…
- it’s great, that BHing is not redeems or claims based - your fight with that elite conda, or your res session will count.
- the overall influence effect of bounty hunting looks overpowered to me - especially numbers for “lower” bounty voucher redeems. you’ll get a 350K claim from any interdicting pirate, if you have a high combat rank yourself - which means you gonna double the influence effect of your trade or more, simply by spending a minute of shooting.
- on the other hand, the influence gain of “low” bounty redeems plus the massively diminishing returns make a strong cause for running a multipurpose ship and actually fight and kill an interdicting pirate - in most cases dedicated bountyhunting will be superflous. Trading corvette for the win!
IV. Addendum on Bounty redeems and Reputation
- Reputation gain is capped at 15% per single redeem (the same as trade). So to go from neutral to allied, you need at least 6 redeems.
- Superpower Reputation is a 2,5 mulitplier at allied applied pre cap.
- You get 1% reputation for each 15K credits redeemed. So your are capped at 225K credits - that's 300K pre 25% IF tax - for an independent faction, and even lower for a superpower alligned one, if you have good reputation with that superpower.
___
Edit 4.3.2021: Fleetcarrier Redemption Office and Influence Gain
As the question plopped up in another thread, i went and tested redeems via a FC's Redemption Office. I redeemed for only 1 Faction per system 1,3 Mio (1 Mio after 25% Redemtion Office Deduction), 2 Mio (1,5 Mio after 25% Redemtion Office Deduction) and 2,6 Mio to compare with the numbers gathered previously here.
Influence gain is what you'd gain for the same bounty value - only after Redemption Office 25% deduction is applied.
fig. 7
fig. 8
fig. 9
How to test:
- redeem 1 Bounty of 1,3 Mio via FC Redemption Office. Next tick redeem 1 Mio at station and compare.
As before i have not fired my deadly crew, so that cut is still the same - plus any of the caveeats described as well before.
That means: if you are in the steep zone of figure 3 with your total redeems for a faction - somewhere below 350k-1 Mio, you might want to use a station for a faction you want to push, as the 25% cut has more severe effects. Once you start redeeming millions, the effect of redeeming via FC instead of via station will be not really noticeable.
Influence gain from bounties is bound to the sum of total bounties redeemed in system. The influence gained is not linear to total value, but has massively diminishing returns. Neither number of redeems, nor claims plays a role.
___
This thread looks at Bountyhunting in a similar way, than the more recent thread on trading, which you can find here:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/trading-for-influence-ii-fc-update.555082/
It’s the third time i have looked into Bounty hunters influence gain after 2016 : https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/a-guide-to-minor-factions-and-the-background-sim.193064/post-3721127 and 2017: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threa...-mechanic-and-bountyhunting-after-2-3.346177/ - and much has changed.
It will be necessary to retest all basic numbers in THIS thread, once FDEV includes the bounty buff numbers into the client (~ when on screen message and bountie vouchers match).
As previously i’ll note how you can test by yourself, so you don’t have to believe fancy graphs and others numbers only.
- All tests have been run in zero-traffic and zero-action systems (beside me), over 40 bounty redeems from 20K to 8.8 mio.
- Factions have been in none-states, no influence locked by conflict.
- No bounties were redeemed via a FC Redemption office.
- No bountyhunting DBE was harmed in this process.
Thanks to the Canonn discord channel on minor factions for raising questions, second guessing and bouncing analysis!
I. A few definitions upfront:
“Redeem” refers to the act of redeeming Bounty Vouchers via Authority contact, aka “Transaction”.
“Claim” refers to the number of bountie voucher rewarded. Without use of a Kill-Warrant-Scanner, each killed wanted Sjhip generates 1 claim.
Influence “gain” or “gross” ("g") refers to the gain of influence of a faction before the actual influence-level is taken into account.
It allows to compare the effect of an action for a faction e.g. at 35% influence and the same action at e.g. 55% influence. i used to call this “raw influence gain”, but DaddaTheButt of Canonn made a reasoning to call it “gross” or simply “gain”, so for now it’s “g”. The original concept is of coatsilver 2015, and was crucial predicting the effect of superpower bounties patch 2017.
For calculating the effect of an action for a single faction without any other action in system, we went with that well established
n : New_influence
i: Old_Influence
g: gross, gain
n=(i+g)/(100+g)
For calculating the effect of an action for a single faction without any other action in system, we went with that well established
n : New_influence
i: Old_Influence
g: gross, gain
n=(i+g)/(100+g)
II. Caveats
- presumably down to the bounty-value-buff, the bounty report currently reports 99,1777 to 99,1779% of redeemed bounties minus npc crew pay.
- i have not fired my deadly ranked npc crew for this test, so if you reason, that FDEV takes bounty redeems minus npc-crew-cut into account (backed by the bounty report doing almost that), the values might be 9% lower.
- you can’t fine tune bounty values inputs as you can with e.g. trade, so it’s not possible to redeem exactly 1 mio bounties, you’ll redeem e.g. 1005087, and next time 1010168 to compare.
- the lower your input gets, and also the higher the factions starting influence is, the more it is prone to fdevs rounding to 4 digits in the journral.
- while all of this uses long-standing methods, it’s sure that fdev calculates influence different - and it is unknow how exactly they do it.
III. Tests
1. NOT transaction/number of redeems based
fig 1.
There is no Influence effect of redeeming bounties multiple times. To spell it ou: whether you redeem 2 times 500K, or 1 time 1 Mio CR has the same effect. It all gets added together.
Those here who might remember the times, when “redeem most often” had an effect will rejoice.
How to test:
- redeem one time 2 Mio in Bounties
- next tick redeem two times 1 Mio in Bounties; compare.
2. NOT claims based
fig. 2
There is no influence effect of number of ships killed for a bounty redeem - listed as “X Bounties were claimed” in the Bounty-Hunter report. So differently to combat rank, it is not necessarily more effective it to shoot elite eagles and sideys.
How to test:
- shoot 20 eagles, redeem.
- next tick shoot large ships for same total bounty value, redeem. Compare.
3. Total Bounty redeemed
As it is not redeems or claims based, influence effect is simply down to total bounties redeemed, albeit that is NOT linear:
fig. 3
You get >90% for 4,5 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
You get around 80% for 3 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
You get ~50% for 1 Mio of what you get for ~8 Mio.
And you get ~20% for 350K (!) of what you get for ~8 Mio.
The most bang for your buck is at ~450K (but there is no reason not to redeem more, or less).
I haven’t tested beyond 9 Mio, as that’s the roundabout total voucher i get from a haz res session before needing to rearm.
Still it doesn’t look as if the curve is flatting out fully after that (but you’ll hit a max influence change cap at some point).
here a scatter plot of values <2 Mio:
fig. 4
How to test:
- redeem 1 Mio. Next tick redeem 8 Mio. compare.
4. Population Size
Redeeming Bounties has exactly the same effect in a small and a large population system before a presumed cap.
fig. 5
Which leads (as with trade) to the counterintuitive mechanic, that you simply will hit a max influence change cap faster in large population systems. In that sense a large population system moves as easy as a small one, just less.
fig. 6.
Numbers on max. inf change drawn from this excellent thread, which i haven’t retested:https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/influence-caps-gains-and-the-wine-analogy.423837/
How to test:
- redeem bounties of same size in two different population sizes; compare.
5. Bounty Report
A Bounty report can be found at any station and looks like this:
Code:
BOUNTY REPORT
DATE
In the last 24 hours, X bounties were claimed in the system, with a total value of Y credits.- The Bounty Reports adds together redeems in system at Authority Contact, and, if present, Interstellar Factor, and, if present during redeem via FC Redemption Office.
- it does not discriminate between imported and in-system bounties.
- if you kill a wanted ship after KWS, and you get 2 bountie vouchers of it, redeeming those 2 vouchers will be listed as “2 Bounties were claimed”.
- as mentioned above, currently the Bounty reports is a tiny fraction low at ~99,17 of actual bounties redeemed, probably down to the way of FDEV “balancing” bounty payouts: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-2.559734/ ; also see: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/threads/game-balancing-pt-3.560418/
6. No influence effect of shooting wanted ships
- I have not found any influence effect of shooting wanted ships (at a scale of 20 ships)
How to test:
- shoot 10-20 wanted ships of 1 faction in 1 system. Check numbers after tick.
- shoot 10-20 wanted ships of 1 faction in 1 system. Check numbers after tick.
What i haven’t tested:
- does the deducted crew-pay reduces the influence effect to a value ~10% lower?
musings:
- I’m pretty sure, that those numbers have been the same before the bounty values buff - it’s now just very easy to get 350K to redeem, or 1 Mio…
- it’s great, that BHing is not redeems or claims based - your fight with that elite conda, or your res session will count.
- the overall influence effect of bounty hunting looks overpowered to me - especially numbers for “lower” bounty voucher redeems. you’ll get a 350K claim from any interdicting pirate, if you have a high combat rank yourself - which means you gonna double the influence effect of your trade or more, simply by spending a minute of shooting.
- on the other hand, the influence gain of “low” bounty redeems plus the massively diminishing returns make a strong cause for running a multipurpose ship and actually fight and kill an interdicting pirate - in most cases dedicated bountyhunting will be superflous. Trading corvette for the win!
IV. Addendum on Bounty redeems and Reputation
- Reputation gain is capped at 15% per single redeem (the same as trade). So to go from neutral to allied, you need at least 6 redeems.
- Superpower Reputation is a 2,5 mulitplier at allied applied pre cap.
- You get 1% reputation for each 15K credits redeemed. So your are capped at 225K credits - that's 300K pre 25% IF tax - for an independent faction, and even lower for a superpower alligned one, if you have good reputation with that superpower.
___
Edit 4.3.2021: Fleetcarrier Redemption Office and Influence Gain
As the question plopped up in another thread, i went and tested redeems via a FC's Redemption Office. I redeemed for only 1 Faction per system 1,3 Mio (1 Mio after 25% Redemtion Office Deduction), 2 Mio (1,5 Mio after 25% Redemtion Office Deduction) and 2,6 Mio to compare with the numbers gathered previously here.
Influence gain is what you'd gain for the same bounty value - only after Redemption Office 25% deduction is applied.
fig. 7
fig. 8
fig. 9
How to test:
- redeem 1 Bounty of 1,3 Mio via FC Redemption Office. Next tick redeem 1 Mio at station and compare.
As before i have not fired my deadly crew, so that cut is still the same - plus any of the caveeats described as well before.
That means: if you are in the steep zone of figure 3 with your total redeems for a faction - somewhere below 350k-1 Mio, you might want to use a station for a faction you want to push, as the 25% cut has more severe effects. Once you start redeeming millions, the effect of redeeming via FC instead of via station will be not really noticeable.
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