Issues: Bounties and Standings

[opium1981]

Dear Frontier Development,

For days now I have been trying to increase my standing with the Empire. While I've had some success, there are issues with the game mechanics which makes this an incredibly hard and frustrating process.

First of all: While going through Unidentified Signal Sources to hunt pirates, or generally while in combat and there are System Security vessels on your side, it repeatedly happens that when hunting the target, they WILL put themselves in front of your, right under your crosshair. Due to firing delay with some weapons like Burst Lasers when overheated or use of gimballed Multi-Cannons, it often happens that you accidentally hit a friendly vessel, which results in an immediate bounty and standings loss. Please fix this! Give us some leeway there, so that accidental hits will, in the future, just be ignored by the system.

Secondly: I just fought in Durius and had a mission for the Empire to take down 3 War Targets. I did so and completed the mission. I went back to the station and handed it in. And it resulted in a LOSS of standing with the Empire! I have no idea what happened there - I carefully checked that it was an Empire faction giving out this mission and I fought on the side of the Empire, so I can just assume that this was a bug somehow?

Anyway, issues like these have become increasingly frustrating for me, since all I do is fight for the Empire, have been since Gamma, and I am getting nowhere with my faction standing.

 

[Kastor]

The second one, with the warzone, that's a bug TICKET IT

As for the first one I recommend a bit more discipline, I've never hit a cop since launch (except that one time i was pirating some smuck with a belly of gold.). It's not about shoot when they arn't in the way, it's about shooting when they are no where near the line of fire. Shooting past someone is considered super rude for a reason, how would you feel if I shot a rifle bullet a 20cm to the left of your head from 100 ms away. Pretty angry and/or scared I'd think.

Wait for the cops to pass and then fire.

(That said there should be proper licenses and so on that allow cops to ignore friendly fire)

 

[opium1981]

Well, the bug I'm going to ticket. However, it often happens the other way around as well: that System Security hits you in the rear. And that doesn't have consequences at all. You should also remember that in some situations it is not possible to just check your fire. For example, if System Security is off to the side or behind you, suddenly barges in front of you and your Burst Laser fires after a delay because it's been overheated. This happened to me at least twice.

Also I now fly a Cobra with two gimballed Multi-Cannons on the outside mounts. These things just spray their fire to an incredible degree, so that especially in the heat of battle, it is not an easy task to estimate where the shots will go. I don't even want to think about Frag Cannons. So allowing the player to, for example, score some shield hits and mark it off as an accident instead of putting a bounty out and attacking them as soon as a single bullet even glances off the shields of another vessel would make it quite proper.

As for your image of shooting a rifle bullet: I wouldn't be remotely as angry or scared if I was the one all of a sudden sprinting into the firing range like a crazy person. If we don't get leeway about hitting other vessels by accident, they should at least fly sane and not hunt after a target like rabid dogs.

Edit: Which, by the way, leads to the police on occasion just ramming you as well, since they suddenly burn right in front of you and then step on the brakes as the target does. Fun.