How to make 60-80M Credits/hour Bounty Hunting (without missions)

[Seshatar]

1. Pledge to ALD and get 100 Merits every week to reach at least rank 2. If you have a lot of time you can try maintain rank 5.
2. Go to ALD system Gende, where you will find a HazRes around 1Ls from a Coriolis port (this system is also only 27LY away from ALD HQ, meaning you can make easy Fortify runs for merits).
3. Use your favorite BH ship
4. Equip a KWS, preferable with Fast Scan engineering and bind it to your main fire group. Enjoy the credits.

(a lot of the numbers depend on your TTK, luck with the ship spawn, etc. I did my testing with a G5 Federal Corvette and had around 25-35M/h in base bounties and around 30-40% extra from KWS. The table below just shows an example how to use KWS and ALD bonuses to significantly increase your payouts without big efforts)

If you use NPC crew, deduct their salary at the end.

Controlling Faction Bounty​	​	30.000.000​	​	​
KWS extra same system bounties​	15,00 %​	4.500.000​	​	​
KWS extra other system bounties​	20,00 %​	​	6.000.000​	​
Sub-sum​	​	34.500.000​	6.000.000​	​
Interstellar factor/Redemption officer​	-25,00 %​	​	-1.500.000​	​
ALD system bonus​	20,00 %​	6.900.000​	​	​
ALD pledge T2 bonus​	40,00 %​	13.800.000​	​	​
Total​	​	55.200.000​	4.500.000​	59.700.000​

Controlling Faction Bounty​	​	30.000.000​	​	​
KWS extra same system bounties​	15,00 %​	4.500.000​	​	​
KWS extra other system bounties​	20,00 %​	​	6.000.000​	​
Sub-sum​	​	34.500.000​	6.000.000​	​
Interstellar factor/Redemption officer​	-25,00 %​	​	-1.500.000​	​
ALD system bonus​	20,00 %​	6.900.000​	​	​
ALD pledge T5 bonus​	100,00 %​	34.500.000​	​	​
Total​	​	75.900.000​	4.500.000​	80.400.000​

 

[Tanya Wu]

Heh.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Hudson has the same bonus as well, but unlike ALD does not double fines and bounties against you if I remember right.

 

[Seshatar]

Hudson has the same bonus as well, but unlike ALD does not double fines and bounties against you if I remember right.

Hudson does not have the flat 20% bonus afaik (for everyone, even if not pledged). Just the pledge tier ones.

 

[Rubbernuke]

Hudson does not have the flat 20% bonus afaik (for everyone, even if not pledged). Just the pledge tier ones.

True, although I assumed you would be pledging regardless. Looking at your number, is the passive bonus and R2 cumulative?

 

[Ydiss]

True, although I assumed you would be pledging regardless. Looking at your number, is the passive bonus and R2 cumulative?

ALD is better than Hudson because of the passive (and it's easy to find those systems). And ALD frequently gets top 3. I used to pledge to Hudson but ALD is the bounty hunter's best choice, assuming you want to focus on raw bounties (I'd suggest these days it's well worth it actually... Might do it but I find it difficult to motivate myself for the 4x weekly undermine hits required and I also feel a bit cheeky doing it... Not like I'm actually helping the cause...)

A typical 1.5 hour 72-81 mission spree for me now nets around 30m raw (after 25% taken). ALD can bump that up nicely.

 

[Rubbernuke]

ALD is better than Hudson because of the passive (and it's easy to find those systems). And ALD frequently gets top 3. I used to pledge to Hudson but ALD is the bounty hunter's best choice, assuming you want to focus on raw bounties (I'd suggest these days it's well worth it actually... Might do it but I find it difficult to motivate myself for the 4x weekly undermine hits required and I also feel a bit cheeky doing it... Not like I'm actually helping the cause...)

A typical 1.5 hour 72-81 mission spree for me now nets around 30m raw (after 25% taken). ALD can bump that up nicely.

I never thought the passive stacked with the R2- taken together its a tidy package! I asked as in the past these stacking issues had been subject to bugs- one (very profitable) bug from long ago was when the R5 bounty bonus of ALD, Hudson and Pranav Antal was quadrupled by an error in how stacked bonuses were applied (so you got 200% in the end).

 

[d8veh]

Where did you get those numbers from? The KWS bonus seems to be too much. From my experience, you get on average 20% extra that you can cash in at the local station and another 10% that you can cash in at an IF, of which the IF takes 25%, so you end up with 7.5%, which means the overall bonus is 27.5%, not 30%-40%.

Also, I think your base bounties are on the high side. I'm getting about 25 mil per 90 minute session on average, which is around 17 mil per hour. My overall estimate for bounty hunting is 17 mil/hr x 1.4 PP x 1.275 KWS. which is around 30 mil/hr,

If you can get 60 mil per hor, then you can have a go a challenging this:

 

[d8veh]

Hudson does not have the flat 20% bonus afaik (for everyone, even if not pledged). Just the pledge tier ones.

The bonus payouts for Hudson and ALD are identical.

 

[Seshatar]

My numbers are from my own data of the bounty hunting sessions I had over the last week. The pledge bonuses for Hudson and ALD are the same (depends on their global standing too ofc), but ALD also gives a general 20% bonus for all systems (like LYR discount), which Hudson does not. So ALD is overall the better choice, unless Hudson is global top 1 and ALD is not in top3, in that case Hudson would be 10% better.

Here an example from one HazRes session today. If you would calculate that up to 60 minutes, it would be almost 50M before ALD bonuses. In another session i made around 36M in 63 minutes, so it certainly depends on your spawn/bounty amount luck and of course how hard you push, I was not trying to set records in those sessions, so more is defenitely possible.

 

[Vedmo]

I recently joined her again to check this out and I'm relearning lessons I've apparently forgotten. The incredibly ridiculous method of picking up PP items (I'm fine with the half hour thing, but paying to bypass still means sitting there clicking them 10 at a time) was once enough, even at 50 per purchase at max rank, to get me to abandon PP all together long ago. It is a horrible interface that saps any desire to participate, nothing new there I realize.

That isn't the only way though! I'm aligned with an Imp now, might as well shake the dust off the Clipper and go pirate some stuff from Aisling. For being very rusty with pirating (and with the Clipper), I actually stole 50 or so PP items in a decent amount of time while having fun, but 30 merits a kill was too tempting.

Off to Fed space to blow up some Hudson ships. No better ship for that task, with all the interdicting, than the Viper MKIV, but I'm an Imp now so I took the Courier instead, fresh with a new chrome paint job, and boy was that fun to fly again. I knocked out over 1k merits before I even though about heading back to ALD space to turn them in. So I guess long story short, I joined ALD to bounty hunt for credits, but instead I've been hunting for merits.

 

[Seshatar]

The incredibly ridiculous method of picking up PP items (I'm fine with the half hour thing, but paying to bypass still means sitting there clicking them 10 at a time) was once enough, even at 50 per purchase at max rank, to get me to abandon PP all together long ago. It is a horrible interface that saps any desire to participate, nothing new there I realize.

Yea I agree, also the reason why I would never try for rank 5, it's just way too annoying.

For rank 2 tho, which only requires 100 merits and gives the 20-50% bonus, it's really no biggie.

 

[Vedmo]

Yea I agree, also the reason why I would never try for rank 5, it's just way too annoying.

For rank 2 tho, which only requires 100 merits and gives the 20-50% bonus, it's really no biggie.

I'm going to go rank 5 for the 100%. Undermining hostile factions I think will be ~180 kills to maintain it, so as long as I get 180 or so kills bounty hunting as well, the 100% bonus will pay off vs. just spending all the undermining time bounty hunting. I'll probably still do some hauling as well. That initial 10k is the kick in the shorts, guess I know what I'm doing for Christmas!

 

[d8veh]

The pledge bonuses for Hudson and ALD are the same (depends on their global standing too ofc), but ALD also gives a general 20% bonus for all systems (like LYR discount), which Hudson does not.

Where did you get that from? Under her Pledge for level 2, it says you get the bonus in controlled/exploited systems, not any system. Why 20%?

Your earnings still seem a bit high. Are you sure it wasn't just a lucky spawn that you get infrequently? 50 kills in 40 minutes also seems very high. I have over 100,000 kills from bounty farming, and I reckon on about 40 per hour in a good session. The problem is not the kill rate, but rather the spawn rate. Is the system where you're farming exception for some reason. If I go there, will I get the same?

 

[Seshatar]

Where did you get that from? Under her Pledge for level 2, it says you get the bonus in controlled/exploited systems, not any system. Why 20%?

The passive 20% bonus is not a pledge bonus, it is a system control bonus similar to LYRs 15% discount. So everyone gets it in ALD systems. You can find this in game under "stats" in the PowerPlay overviews.

Your earnings still seem a bit high. Are you sure it wasn't just a lucky spawn that you get infrequently? 50 kills in 40 minutes also seems very high. I have over 100,000 kills from bounty farming, and I reckon on about 40 per hour in a good session. The problem is not the kill rate, but rather the spawn rate. Is the system where you're farming exception for some reason. If I go there, will I get the same?

As I said, a lot depends on spawn luck and TTK. But my lowest hours still had around 25M base bounties +25-35% extra from KWS. Long range sensors also help to identify new targets fast.

 

[Rubbernuke]

The passive 20% bonus is not a pledge bonus, it is a system control bonus similar to LYRs 15% discount. So everyone gets it in ALD systems. You can find this in game under "stats" in the PowerPlay overviews.View attachment 200686

As I said, a lot depends on spawn luck and TTK. But my lowest hours still had around 25M base bounties +25-35% extra from KWS. Long range sensors also help to identify new targets fast.

Since its apparent the passive bonus stacks, you might want to alter the advice to do this in exploited (i.e. non control) systems to get around any doubling of fines and bounties against the player which apply to control systems....just in case

 

[Schmack]

Where did you get that from? Under her Pledge for level 2, it says you get the bonus in controlled/exploited systems, not any system. Why 20%?

Your earnings still seem a bit high. Are you sure it wasn't just a lucky spawn that you get infrequently? 50 kills in 40 minutes also seems very high. I have over 100,000 kills from bounty farming, and I reckon on about 40 per hour in a good session. The problem is not the kill rate, but rather the spawn rate. Is the system where you're farming exception for some reason. If I go there, will I get the same?

Are these Magic grits?

Why do BH when you can do BH and pirate kill missions at the same time?

 

[d8veh]

OK, I tried this and I have some longer term statistics. I used a Shield tank Corvette that's 90% optimised for RES farming with an automatic fast scan KWS and an SLF after doing the level 5 powerplay deliveries to get the 100% bonus on the bounties. Total net earnings were 926,768,631cr in 14.9 hrs, which works out at 62,199,237cr per hr. That's after the SLF took 10%. With level 2 PP, which is much quicker, the earnins would have been around 45 mil per hr, while ALD is at position 1 this week. Next week, she might be lower.

OP's data is from an exceptional spawn. Normally, the spawn rate is not high enough to kill that many ships and be able to collect that many bounties in 40 minutes. Interestingly,my first visit to the Haz RES gave me a similar spawn, but nothing like it since. If I get a crappy spawn, I log until I get a better one.

I don't think that you could get more by not having the SLF because to get the highest kill rate, you need to deal with wings of three strong ships. Without the SLF, you'd run out of SCBs quicker and waste the equivalent amount of time running back to the station for re-arming. I used a mixture of beam and pulse lasers so that I was able to stay out 2 to 3 hours at a time. Othet weapons could kill qicker, but you'd lose the time running back and forwards to the station for ammo.

My time included everything. That's time to fly to the IF to cash in bounties of 131 mil after two days (who says KWS doesn't pay?), time to fly to and from the station and time to do the transactions.

The deliveries took me 4.6 hrs because of the ridiculouus amount of clicking you have to do to load 10 units at a time 1000 times to get your 10,000 units. It's roughly 20 minutes per run at 728 cargo capacity in a Cutter. An Anaconda would take a lot longer. A T9 would also be good if you're confident that you can deal with interdictions in the T9, which I don't recommend if you haven't got expeience with that ship. Next week, I only have to deliver 5000 units and I get allocated 50 at a time, so the return trip and clicking should be down to 12 minutes and I only have to make 7 trips instead of 14, so about 1.5 hrs to keep the level 5.

Before the bounty payout buff, I calculated that you had to do 30 hours a week bounty hunting to make the level 5 worthwhile, but now it's paying 30 mil per hour, so payback is after about about 6 hrs in week 1 and 1 1/2 hours in subsequent weeks. In other words, if you can stand the 5 hours of mindless clicking, and you like bounty farming, it's well worth doing. All you need is 100 mil in the bank and a good cargo ship.

Thank's to OP for pointing to this method of making money. I don't think 80 mil per hour would be achieved in the long term, but anyone with a good combat ship should be able to get past 30 mil per hour after doing the level 2 PP.

The Corvette I used:

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

Cutter for deliveries:

EDSY

EDSY is a ship outfitting tool for Elite Dangerous

edsy.org

 

[Seshatar]

If I understand your calculations right, your rate per hour would have been much better with G2 or will be much better in the next weeks due to faster delivery times. These numbers really got crippled by the hours spent on G5. I

927M - 131M = 804M
804M / 2,2 x 1,7 = 621M
621M + 131M = 752M
752M / (14,9-4,6) = 73M per hour

Also with Lasers + MCs + Bi-weaves and some G1 mats (easy to max with G5 trades) to refill MCs you never even have to dock at all unless you need to refuel or want to turn in the bounties.

 

[d8veh]

If I understand your calculations right, your rate per hour would have been much better with G2 or will be much better in the next weeks due to faster delivery times. These numbers really got crippled by the hours spent on G5.

I didn't include time for PP deliveries because it's burden would be different for each palyer depending on the hours they play.

927M - 131M = 804M
804M / 2,2 x 1,7 = 621M
621M + 131M = 752M
752M / (14,9-4,6) = 73M per hour

I've no idea what any of those figures mean but if the conclusion is 73mil/hr, then something is wrong.

Also with Lasers + MCs + Bi-weaves and some G1 mats (easy to max with G5 trades) to refill MCs you never even have to dock at all unless you need to refuel or want to turn in the bounties.

You have to collect the materials for synthesis, so it's not worth it. It'll take longer overall.Materials are worth more than cash in the game, so it doesn't make sense to waste them.