Proposal Discussion Kill Warrant Scanner Feedback

Hello Commanders!

We've been discussing the Kill Warrant Scanner a lot today.

I'm about to start another trawl through this thread for another round of feedback (wish me luck), so in the meantime, I want to put something else out for you to chew over. It's another serving suggestion. At face value it sounds very much like the initial proposal, but there are significant differences. Have a think about how you currently use the KWS, and how you might need to change your tactics to get the same, or similar results (and of course, look for elements that you think this suggestion does not accommodate).

* The kill Warrant Scanner becomes a "force multiplier" for the superpower that is aligned with the current jurisdiction.

* Independents, for the purposes of the KWS become a superpower (as in they've all signed a treaty for KWS usage).

* A successful KWS scan reveals all bounties for factions aligned with the superpower controlling the current jurisdiction:

** All Federal bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by a Federal faction.

** All Empire bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an Imperial faction.

** All Alliance bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an Alliance faction.

** All independent bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an independent faction.

* No bounties can be detected in anarchies, making them safe havens for criminals.

* The KWS scan legitimises attack for any bounty detected.

* There are no interstellar bounties - the KWS effectively subsumes this role. However, because all bounties are individual, reputation gain is retained for them.

@Sandro

While this seems an honest and well-thought secondary proposal - I have to say I MUCH prefer your original one. I would still like the Interstellar Bounties implemented. The thought of someone making themselves unwelcome across the whole of civilized space has a poetic ring to it.

Additionally, I wanted to make sure my understanding is correct - jurisdictions correspond to the space within the system controlled by a given faction, correct? I ask because (at least from what I have seen here) nobody has mentioned the fact that, to increase faction rep, one could lock onto a target near starport A (controlled by Fed Fools Inc) and then pursue (in SC) interdict, KWS and destroy said ship while on approach to starport B (controlled by Imperial Nutjobs R Us). Sure it is a bit more work, but this means you get to select, track, and hunt your prey under the banner most advantageous to your situation at the time.
 
I have only used the kill warrant scanner for PVE. I can see why you are doing what you are doing, and I can see why the PVE folks seem less satisfied with these changes. The one thing I would change is I would make the KWS passive post kill too. It takes so long to scan a ship with it that is already wanted just for the hope of a few more (now reduced) breadcrumbs. The module can currently be run before to verify a target and change it to a wanted state, but if it could ALSO run automatically upon target destruction, it wouldn't give people an automatic green light to attack non wanted ships without a scan but already wanted ships would have their ID run through the system once killed, so you could cash in on any other existing bounties. Sure you get less than the old system, but you get it more often, and not having to wait to scan already wanted and probably hostile targets would take away one of the biggest disadvantages of the KWS for PVEers. This would also run the IDs of non-wanted ships you kill through the scanner and could mean you end up not getting a bounty for killing them if they happened to be wanted, but most people wouldn't gamble on that I think.
 
If you can't collect all bounties it seems the simple solution is to get rid of the KWS. It's only really useful to increase bounty payout for people starting out in the game. I'm not going to miss waiting for the scan to complete. The loss is compensated by freeing up a utility slot which are precious anyway. Just let the normal scan pick up all valid bounties in the jurisdiction. Job done.

Don't hang on to it if it's causing problems.
 
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If you can't collect all bounties it seems the simple solution is to get rid of the KWS. It's only really useful to increase bounty payout for people starting out in the game. I'm not going to miss waiting for the scan to complete. The loss is compensated by freeing up a utility slot which are precious anyway. Just let the normal scan pick up all valid bounties in the jurisdiction. Job done.

Don't hang on to it if it's causing problems.

Wake Scanners next, then? :)
 
Hello Commanders!

We've been discussing the Kill Warrant Scanner a lot today.

I'm about to start another trawl through this thread for another round of feedback (wish me luck), so in the meantime, I want to put something else out for you to chew over. It's another serving suggestion. At face value it sounds very much like the initial proposal, but there are significant differences. Have a think about how you currently use the KWS, and how you might need to change your tactics to get the same, or similar results (and of course, look for elements that you think this suggestion does not accommodate).

* The kill Warrant Scanner becomes a "force multiplier" for the superpower that is aligned with the current jurisdiction.

* Independents, for the purposes of the KWS become a superpower (as in they've all signed a treaty for KWS usage).

* A successful KWS scan reveals all bounties for factions aligned with the superpower controlling the current jurisdiction:

** All Federal bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by a Federal faction.

** All Empire bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an Imperial faction.

** All Alliance bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an Alliance faction.

** All independent bounties are detected when in a jurisdiction controlled by an independent faction.

* No bounties can be detected in anarchies, making them safe havens for criminals.

* The KWS scan legitimises attack for any bounty detected.

* There are no interstellar bounties - the KWS effectively subsumes this role. However, because all bounties are individual, reputation gain is retained for them.

I like the legitimizing of bounties, as this makes the bounty hunting, well bounty hunting.
A Pirate wanted in Imperial A, flees to Imperial Faction B, where they are clean; the KWS does what its name suggests and grants the Kill warrant on the otherwise "clean" Pirate.
However if A Pirate wanted in Imperial A, flees to Federal Faction C, it does nothing about the Imperial Bounties and any attack would be a crime.

I like this thematically
 
There are so many top posts in the last few pages that I'm reping as much as I can

But this one stands out both for the amusement factor and the excellent explanation of several fairly obvious downsides to what the devs are proposing that really shouldn't need explaining at all!
I agree on all accounts.


Something of a random thought for which I haven't thought through all the consequences, but what if the KWS revealed bounties as a reward based on your standing with factions rather than as solely a method by which to gain reputation.

Something along the lines of:
- Reveals all bounties for local factions that you are Cordial or better with.
- Reveals superpower bounties where you are Friendly or better with the superpower aligned with the controlling local faction.
- Reveals bounties for the PP power to which you are pledged (is this a thing?)
- Reveals all bounties for non-local factions that you are Allied with that are aligned with the controlling local faction.

The lore around this would be that the KWS doesn't query a galaxy-wide database, but instead the local one, with access levels based on your standings, with local and superpower data sharing for the controlling faction.
If you are Unfriendly or worse with the local controlling faction, you have no KWS access.
This might also give a reason for Anarchies being a safe space for bad guys because the controlling faction wouldn't have a KWS database.
As a bonus, it also brings one module back closer in line with an Elite principle that I personally believe should be stuck to more broadly - nothing travels faster than a pilot in a ship.

This would still be a nerf but it's one that generates a Bounty Hunter career with a reason to travel around broadly gaining rep. and would reward being reknowned in the local area with good rep. across the board.
Conversely, it would also be a detriment to those who garner negative rep. with factions, making it a force multiplier when it comes to role playing.
You couldn't suddenly switch from pirating a faction to handing in bounty claims with the same faction, you'd have to restore your rep by other means first.
You could also role play the whole Fed. v Imperial thing, pirating one while claiming bounties for the other.

NPC bounty hunters could also have these varying access levels according to their combat rank - with higher ranked NPCs more likely to have broader KWS access.

The access levels might also be tweaked based on BGS state.
E.g. During a Lockdown, all access restrictions are lifted - they just want the bad guys dead, no questions asked.

I think the main thing I'm missing is a KWS mechanism for uncontrolled systems - perhaps returning any Allied faction bounties would work there but it bends the lore on how it should work.
Less complicated than FDev's proposal perhaps but possibly still too complicated.

It may be more difficult to implement this too, but that's neither here nor there because there's no time for them to implement much beyond what they have with some tweaks.

All of FDev's points don't seem to be big changes to the code. Things they can implement with 3.0 or shortly after is likely the goal.


a dozen ears on a string.
I want one. Christmas lights are out of season. Fuzzy dice too if possible.:D


Perhaps it would be helpful to allow us to visualise the volumes of space where we are Wanted on our current ship on the Galaxy Map?
I was bummed when nobdy mentioned that as a new filter during the beta. Like explorers, criminals will be in the dark about their own "worth?"


Perhaps, after detection and destruction, let us choose not to pay some non-responsible-jurisdiction bounties, but the ship in question is impounded until these are paid off? Orange Asbo Sidewinder available at all reputable detention facilities.
Or pay more of the target's rebuy if the crime was murder (only players ofc) via a donation to the Cmdr (Messge (Accept/Decline like random missions but Decline disabled to avoid exploits) or Transactions tab).


EDIT: I really find the 2nd proposal's suggestion of making KWS in Anarchies ineffective highly unintuitive and against the bounty hunter trope of tracking down your target into the badlands. Please don't do it.
This worries me as well.

I wish them luck in getting out of this corner they've painted themselves into. Waiting too long to fix some of the issues raised with BGS & rep could create some interesting areas in the bubble.
 
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KISS

A few of you know that acronym.

The old version spawned a bunch of random bounties increasing the value of a hunted target - thus making the the KWS useful. Kinda boring though.

I would prefer the "hidden gold" approach.

Most scans yield no additional bounty, but once in a while a scan will reveal a HUGE FAT RIDICULOUS bounty (20 million or more). The target is a notorious bad guy, and you will be logged as the famous bounty hunter that brought him down in your journal. You could even drop in tip offs as to the possible system location of such a scum bag.
 
Disclosure: not really into bounty hunting myself. I've never been into the combat side of things, though I want to change that a little at some point in the future.

Having said that, speaking as someone with no personal or emotional investment in the topic, I've read the entire thread (yes, all of it) and would like to offer an objective observation.

1. Making the KWS useless in anarchy systems really seems to me a terrible idea. As others noted, the idea of going into lawless territory to track down that ruthless killer is a staple of fiction in many genres, and has an appeal for gameplay as well as storytelling. Taking away the ability to do this takes away part of the game's charm.

2. From a logistics/lore perspective, it doesn't make sense for a KWS to find bounties for "all factions allied to a superpower" and yet ignore the local system bounties. The local system bounties would be right there where you could access them even using communications methods operating at relativistic speeds (i.e., light/radio) and a KWS should reveal all LOCAL bounties, allowing for gaining local faction rep as well as any possible power play application.

3. Additional disclosure: I do NOT oppose PvP or related game play, and never have. I don't define all situations where one player opens fire on another as "griefing," and never will. Having said that...I've seen a few comments saying "leave it the old way," and respond to the notion that doing so would be "crippling" with "if you can't pay the fine, don't do the crime." In a way, I empathize with this notion. More than a few people have said in this forum that due to the billions they've amassed, "the C & P won't save you." If the truly persistent murderers did face the full brunt of consequences, whether taking away a notable chunk of their fortune or causing them to lose one of their prized murder-yachts, you have to admit that would go a long way toward stemming the tide of seal-clubbing and murder sprees.

Just my initial thoughts.
 
...Have you straight up lost your minds?

No. Seriously. Have you legitimately gone stark raving mad?

Let's look at what the KWS currently does now.

When you scan a target and discover it's wanted. It really only has a bounty on it placed by the controlling faction and sometimes the Superpower the minor faction is allied with. So currently the base scanners before you even trigger a KWS already do what you propose be done to the KWS. Redundant much?

So if you make this change are you going to nerf the basic scanners so they can't even tell if a ship is wanted?

Now you pull the trigger on the KWS. IF YOU'RE LUCKY it will reveal additional bounties for minor factions IN THE SAME SYSTEM.

So in other words the KWS is linking the individual to the entire system. Again already the jurisdiction. So once again you're proposing a redundant change that is already in the game.

IF YOU ARE EVEN MORE LUCKY then the KWS might reveal bounties in neighboring systems or even the other superpowers but you're more likely to run across the latter then the former unless said faction has spread to that system.

So not only does this give you vast wealth but it shows that the individual in question has been a REALLY naughty boy in your system. And maybe the surrounding ones too.

Now I don't know if you've been playing your game and doing any serious bounty hunting but the higher tiered pirate CAN AND WILL RUN. Meaning you might be gunning for a particularly juicy bounty and the Pirate will turn and flee to another system before you can end him.

Usually they flee to an anarchy or a system where they are clean.

This is where it pays to have your KWS. So you can reactivate the bounty you were trying to claim and get that juicy payday.

Not only are you going to take that away by making the next jurisdiction not care, you are also destroying the functionality of the FSD wake scanner which lets Bounty Hunters latch on to their prey and not let go. I'm sure MoM has been itching to apply additional panic jumping to pirates who are being pursued by a rather tenacious CMDR and leading them on a chase throughout a sector. Or worse, by not allowing a player to attack a wanted target just because he's in another system, you destroy the purpose of Bounty Hunting entirely turning players from wandering Marshals into local beat cops.

An easy way to turn CMDRs tenacious is making the paydays bigger. Which is what a KWS does. Now instead of a measly 5K for a sidewinder. You're now in pursuit of a 40K Sector Most Wanted. (And I'm sure if you raise the payouts higher then the cheap ones they are now, you'll have more players sticking to them)

Additionally, if detention centres *did* process all bounties the result would potentially be crippling, punishing Commanders too harshly for killing ships, even NPC ships, by forcing them to pay every bounty at once, especially considering that bounties will no longer expire.

EXCUSE ME? Mercy for the Merciless who don't even know the meaning of the word let alone it's very existence?

Do you understand WHY players demanded more draconian C&P? Because as it stands right now, the salt of the earth. The lowest scum of the playerbase, have no real deterants to stay away from Lawful space. They have free run of all space instead of having their activities contained in Anarchy Space where no one would bat an eye or care what they did there.

If a Player wants to engage in murder spree shenanigans, they should do it in anarchy space or pay the very heavy price for the lack of mercy they show anyone. Other players or NPC's.

I mean for godsake. Not only did you allow the System Authority to turn into a joke, you ENDORSED COP KILLING WITH THE ENGINEERS. Don't think I'm not aware of those materials you made only drop from system authority ships.

We think the updated crime system is better across the board, and ultimately, worth the change to how the KWS works.

I agree. The new system is better across the board because it forces players to really consider the risk verses the reward. You've now implemented the risk. Now you can focus on the rewards.

It does NOT however justify the changes to the KWS scanner.

Do you think this proposal give the KWS enough kick? Does it punish/threaten criminals too much?

ABSOLUTELY NOT. YOU DON'T GO FAR ENOUGH.

You took the one thing that can give a player teeth in a new system where players can hide in 'clean' ships and made it WORTHLESS by taking away a Bounty Hunter's Right to Kill.

If anything you've once again defanged Law Enforcement and players' ability to uphold the law to counter those that play the criminal element.

By removing the ability to break the backs of criminals, you've lowered the risk to being murder hobos. They do not have any incentive to behave themselves in Lawful space.

By removing the ability to claim any and all bounties regardless of jurisdiction, you've removed any incentive for Bounty Hunters to engage in raiding Anarchy Space for criminals as criminals would raid lawful space for goods.

Frankly these changes make a clear statement to me and one most shocking.

Frontier is endorsing and encouraging Griefers and Griefing. With these changes they allow them continued free reign to terrorize lawful space and not allow players the ability to counter and break these individuals. Thus defeating the entire reason for this new C&P.

DO NOT CHANGE THE KILL WARRENT SCANNER FROM IT'S CURRENT STATE.

It is now a powerful tool that can be used to finally free lawful space.

If you're so worried about players being broken to bankruptcy then remind them that there is already a built-in game mechanic THAT HAS BEEN IN GAME SINCE LAUNCH that allows them these shenanigans without repercussions and avoid the new C&P.

Anarchy Space.

You designed it for this reason.

USE IT.

(God this frustrates me as a career Bounty Hunter... bad enough payouts were based on ship type rather then combat rank... now you want to take away my extra payday and positive BGS manipulation?)
 
It's a huge nerf for PvE players. C&P is largely a PvP mechanic. Human commanders are persistent, NPCs are not. We can't just chase them down once they've jumped out of the system, blast them again, and pick up the rest of their bounties. When they're gone, they're gone.

Nerfing the hell out of something mainly used for PvE purposes, in order to shoehorn it into the C&P mechanic isn't really an improvement from our perspective. It just reduces earning potential, and reinforces the belief that FDev has a hard on for smashing anything that players can use to earn credits.

If a given player kills a wanted NPC, there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to collect all the bounties on the NPC, regardless of where they're issued. The way it works now, if I kill an NPC, I'm going to see bounties for several jurisdictions, including bounties for the 'big three' superpowers. That gives me an incentive to travel to those locations to collect them (I never use the factor, I don't see the point in paying 25% when it's not that hard to get to where I have to go to turn a bounty in). The new KWS would remove those bounties from the list, and by extension, help to encourage people to stay in one place. I don't see that as an improvement.
 
I can see the changes having a significant impact on the background sim.

Take the proposed amended changes whereby say bounties are generated for all the factions that are signed up members of the controlling factions parent superpower.

This has the potential to turn systems into sterile homogeneous zones where factions not connected to the relevant superpower are shot into insignificance by players bounty hunting in res sites.

As an example take this made up system, Ill call it Samarco, its made up of the following factions.

Church of the space loach, Federation aligned controlling faction
Beige cowboy traders federation
Dont panic independents
No eta no guarantees Alliance
Naughty boiz anarchy.

Because the controlling faction is fed, the independents and alliance would gain nothing from bounty hunters, hence bgs players can manipulate the system easily by going into that system and just killing wanted npcs. The none fed factions could quickly find their system influence status reduced to single figure percentages, thereby forcing them to lose stations. The fed factions would conversely have an effective monopoly.

This situation would be further affected by powerplay as that also favours certain faction types.

I think that we could be replacing the legacy C&P murder exploit whereby commanders could easily cause lockdowns by killing cops and innocent npc's with one whereby the worm is turned and now its bounty hunters wiping out factions that dont follow their chosen superpower.

Personally hope you can do some internal modelling on test servers to see how this could affect the BGS.
Perhaps make each RES site belong to different factions (HazRES don't count) would alleviate this, as you could hunt in different jurisdictions, so get different aligned bounties.
 
It's a huge nerf for PvE players. C&P is largely a PvP mechanic. Human commanders are persistent, NPCs are not. We can't just chase them down once they've jumped out of the system, blast them again, and pick up the rest of their bounties. When they're gone, they're gone.

Nerfing the hell out of something mainly used for PvE purposes, in order to shoehorn it into the C&P mechanic isn't really an improvement from our perspective. It just reduces earning potential, and reinforces the belief that FDev has a hard on for smashing anything that players can use to earn credits.

If a given player kills a wanted NPC, there's no real reason why they shouldn't be able to collect all the bounties on the NPC, regardless of where they're issued. The way it works now, if I kill an NPC, I'm going to see bounties for several jurisdictions, including bounties for the 'big three' superpowers. That gives me an incentive to travel to those locations to collect them (I never use the factor, I don't see the point in paying 25% when it's not that hard to get to where I have to go to turn a bounty in). The new KWS would remove those bounties from the list, and by extension, help to encourage people to stay in one place. I don't see that as an improvement.

That is not really true. As a strict PvE player, I found the 3.0 C&P system much more satisfying than the one in the live game. The key issue that now remains outstanding is that bounties need a significant, across the board buff. They also need to look into adding extra functionality to the KWS in future chapters. An ability to use the KWS-in a limited fashion-from Super Cruise would be a good start. Also, the ability for a KW scan to lock an NPC into persistence for that Commander.....allowing them to track that NPC consistently across multiple systems.....would also be an excellent addition.
 
Why not still keep KWS and boost bounties then?

If anything we look for is PVE bounty hunting income, just increase bounties revealed by KWS for NPCs.



How that makes any sense considering system fundamentally changes and you have bounties tied to the ship?

Just increase bounties revealed by KWS. Done.

You don't know what you're talking about, which is why you think the solution is simple and why you think everyone here is dumb.

Yes the KWS increases earnings potential but it is not about raw numbers. The old functionality revealed a whole slew of bounties for a given target, which you then were free to *choose* to turn in (or not) by either going to each jurisdiction or by taking a pay cut through interstellar factors.

Crucially, the KWS gave you the ability to *choose* whether to cash in a bounty for a given faction, and at which station to do so. This impacts your reputation with the faction in question, as well as the influence levels of the faction in question. You can make intelligent, strategic, meaningful choices around the old KWS mechanics. The new system makes everything into one simple dumb number and it eliminates all of this strategy and choice. You can't fix it by just raising a payout because payouts are not the most significant loss here.

What we are losing is *depth* and we're replacing it with a simple, shallow, dumb mechanic instead. You cannot fix this just by bumping up payouts. You cannot.
 
@ Sandro:

All of your ideas are good and I would support either one of the two proposed sets of KWS functionality you've proposed, but the fact remains that none of your ideas are addressing the problem of BGS influence for PVE bounty hunters in RES sites. In the "old" KWS system, you could go to a RES, scan a ship, shoot it down, and come away with a collection of bounties for most of the factions that inhabit a particular system. If you want to boost the influence of one particular in-system faction but not others, you then have the *choice* of turning in only the bounty vouchers for the faction you want to support, and not turning in any of the others.

This gives us a level of agency, strategy, and purpose to what would otherwise by a comparably shallow credit-farming exercise.

Your new system takes away these options, which are meaningful, consequential, and interesting; and replaces it with . . . nothing.

It's not about the boost in credits that the KWS grants. It's about the increased depth of meaningful choices that it offers.

What can be done to ensure that BGS players will still be able to use the KWS to boost or oppose specific chosen factions? This is a crucial issue. Please address it.

Again, all of your ideas so far have been great; it's just that they all seem to focus primarily on PVP consequences, and they ignore the BGS issue.
 
Would another solution be to do away with the KWS, and have local kill warrants issued by the local faction on the mission screen (like an opt-in fixed version of eliminate x ships, just open eneded)? The more you kill the better the reward. This also means you can then explicitly choose who to support as a rent-a-cop, and you have all BGS targets marked.
 
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