Hunting Players with top Bounties

Clacies · May 9, 2015

I've been a bounty hunter since the first day i managed to get enough credits for my Viper (now i'm sporting a pimped out Vulture) and one thing that has annoyed me greatly was that while hunting NPC's is relatively easy and simple, hunting players is well...not.

I've been hunting another player with over a 90000000 credit bounty on him and I have been sitting, staking out this port he favors when it dawned upon me...IS THIS GUY EVEN IN OPEN PLAY?!?!

He could be in solo play or something and I could be wasting my time that could be spent hunting someone else. Is there some way to know whether or not a target is in solo, open, or private play because I would either like to continue with this hunt in confidence or go find another target.

Snakebite · May 9, 2015

Clacies said:
I've been a bounty hunter since the first day i managed to get enough credits for my Viper (now i'm sporting a pimped out Vulture) and one thing that has annoyed me greatly was that while hunting NPC's is relatively easy and simple, hunting players is well...not.

I've been hunting another player with over a 90000000 credit bounty on him and I have been sitting, staking out this port he favors when it dawned upon me...IS THIS GUY EVEN IN OPEN PLAY?!?!

He could be in solo play or something and I could be wasting my time that could be spent hunting someone else. Is there some way to know whether or not a target is in solo, open, or private play because I would either like to continue with this hunt in confidence or go find another target.

Always good to hear a fellow BH,

Take a look at the Edge Syndicate, we operate the Bounty Boards and help organise the Bounty Hunters Guild.

Clacies · May 9, 2015

Thanks, i'll look into it.

I just wish that bounty hunting was a little bit more refined (I know a lot of others do to). The only reason I'm pursuing such a lucrative bounty is the potential to avoid the long grind to a python or similar classed ship. I know the systems my target is in and I know when he is on (because his bounty on the board rises) but I have yet to find him after hours of searching and jumping from station to hub and from system to system.

Jesse30 · May 9, 2015

Clacies said:
Thanks, i'll look into it.

I just wish that bounty hunting was a little bit more refined (I know a lot of others do to). The only reason I'm pursuing such a lucrative bounty is the potential to avoid the long grind to a python or similar classed ship. I know the systems my target is in and I know when he is on (because his bounty on the board rises) but I have yet to find him after hours of searching and jumping from station to hub and from system to system.

I hate to break it to you, but those guys never play in OPEN unless you pay real money. Don't waste your time, and I have been playing since Beta and I never tried.

SentineI · May 9, 2015

Jesse30 said:
I hate to break it to you, but those guys never play in OPEN unless you pay real money. Don't waste your time, and I have been playing since Beta and I never tried.

Thank you for stopping me from wasting my time. I can't believe the Top Bounties list covers bounties NOT gained in Open play (or the Private Group I'm in). Really stupid. At the very least it should not report "last known location" that's not in Open play.

Quineloe · May 9, 2015

ChrisH said:
Thank you for stopping me from wasting my time. I can't believe the Top Bounties list covers bounties NOT gained in Open play (or the Private Group I'm in). Really stupid. At the very least it should not report "last known location" that's not in Open play.

Don't listen to him, I've seen and even bagged a few of those bounties.

pippo · May 9, 2015

ChrisH said:
(or the Private Group I'm in)

Wouldn't this be your problem?
Those top bounty might be in solo, but even if they were in open, how are you supposed to catch them if you're in a private group?

EDIT: don't mind me, I thought from your post you were the OP

Halp · May 9, 2015

hit Esc-->exit game. functionality is key, who cares

Majinvash · May 9, 2015

I always play in Open, a team got me last week and shared my 1.6mil bounty.

Flashgordon83 · May 9, 2015

My guess is that is is friends who cash in these bounties to earn credits.

nedeaalex · May 9, 2015

Majinvash said:
I always play in Open, a team got me last week and shared my 1.6mil bounty.

Wow have my rep my kudos and well, my virtual gratitude for actually having the courage to do it. Sadly just like rhinos, you are an endagered species because of all the fluffy bunnies that hide in their fluffy parallel universe where nothing can hurt them

- - - Updated - - -

Flashgordon83 said:
My guess is that is is friends who cash in these bounties to earn credits.

My guess is that this game is flawed and a galactic criminal can just be invisible to us all because of the magic thing : Solo. Oh what a time to be alive and play online games where people are not actually online with me, just share my world, which by the way they can change it, from a parallel universe. Wow tech in 3000 must be really good

Derath · May 9, 2015

It won't let me give more rep to Majinvash but it should! He deserves it for being a long time pirate the way it was meant to be

fergal · May 9, 2015

Clacies said:
I've been a bounty hunter since the first day i managed to get enough credits for my Viper (now i'm sporting a pimped out Vulture) and one thing that has annoyed me greatly was that while hunting NPC's is relatively easy and simple, hunting players is well...not.

I've been hunting another player with over a 90000000 credit bounty on him and I have been sitting, staking out this port he favors when it dawned upon me...IS THIS GUY EVEN IN OPEN PLAY?!?!

He could be in solo play or something and I could be wasting my time that could be spent hunting someone else. Is there some way to know whether or not a target is in solo, open, or private play because I would either like to continue with this hunt in confidence or go find another target.

Its not easy, I gave up a while ago, but I was able to find and interdict one of them.

Look at the top bounties for the federation, alliance or empire. Looking at independent ones will be hard to do.
Every time you land at a station keep you eye on it, and see if the last know location of any one of them changes. If it does that means they are online.

If they are online you have a chance.

Some players will just be in different time zones to you and wont play at the same time, as others have said, some of these guys are just farming bounties on themselves to sell them, they will be hiding in a group. Nothing you can do about that.

Clacies · May 10, 2015

Unfortunately, after thoroughly searching for my target and staking out many ports and stations (that the top bounty list said he was in and tends to favor), I must conclude that my target is either one of those people who hates others or who is a coward and therefore too afraid to confront the possibility of in game death.

In other words, he is most definitely playing in private or solo.

kurush · May 10, 2015

I hate to say it, but even if your target plays open (why would he though?), you can never get instanced with him just because network gods don't favor you or your hunt.

Snakebite · May 10, 2015

kurush said:
I hate to say it, but even if your target plays open (why would he though?), you can never get instanced with him just because network gods don't favor you or your hunt.

That is one major drawback for the bounty hunting profession, but I have a simple solution.
We (bounty hunters) should be able to 'tag' someone as a target and the instancing algorithm should then attempt to instance us together like it does with friends...

kurush · May 10, 2015

Snakebite said:
That is one major drawback for the bounty hunting profession, but I have a simple solution.
We (bounty hunters) should be able to 'tag' someone as a target and the instancing algorithm should then attempt to instance us together like it does with friends...

Considering that your opponent has to basically agree for you to hunt him, why don't you just try to friend him?

It might still require 4-5 reloads and may be even a jump into another system to see each other

Krepose Gavayne · May 11, 2015

fergal said:
Its not easy, I gave up a while ago, but I was able to find and interdict one of them.

Look at the top bounties for the federation, alliance or empire. Looking at independent ones will be hard to do.
Every time you land at a station keep you eye on it, and see if the last know location of any one of them changes. If it does that means they are online.

If they are online you have a chance.

Some players will just be in different time zones to you and wont play at the same time, as others have said, some of these guys are just farming bounties on themselves to sell them, they will be hiding in a group. Nothing you can do about that.

I think it comes down to luck if you see any of these players when you're after them, but you can increase your odds like fergal says.

The problems of instances and time zones was also discussed in this thread: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=124678

Derath · May 11, 2015

kurush said:
Considering that your opponent has to basically agree for you to hunt him, why don't you just try to friend him? It might still require 4-5 reloads and may be even a jump into another system to see each other

I always wanted people to hunt me, but I didn't want it to be quite easy as telling them where I was on the map lol, letting bounty hunters on your friends list is a recipe for disaster

ciger · May 11, 2015

Derath said:
I always wanted people to hunt me, but I didn't want it to be quite easy as telling them where I was on the map lol, letting bounty hunters on your friends list is a recipe for disaster

yeah but funny thing is most of the random people who sent me friend requests were/are playing solo