Proposal Discussion Kill Warrant Scanner Feedback

[Ralph Vargr]

KWS effects on reputation advance in home system.

Note: I have made a mistake.

My current home system is now independent, rather than a Fed system as it was before.

Under what I have seen under the proposed changes (I may be wrong, again) to gain Federation rep, I will need to move to a Federation-controlled system.

So, my KWS work last night advanced my reputation little with the Federation. In fact, it went down.

My home system has gone Beige.

Time to find a Fed system in Discount Space, and rep up there.

Important safety note: Four FAS against a DBS is not a fair fight. I escaped with 23% hull, and two minutes of oxygen. Pirates interdicting me, of course.

 

[Arkadi]

deleted

not a qulified post. Let's face it, I have no idea about this topic.

 

[Kale Regan]

I like the concept of the KWS legitimizing attacks on criminal players, but I could not justify using a KWS on a PvP-fit ship since it takes up a very precious utility slot (which would be infinitely better used with a shield booster, heat sink, or chaff launcher) and has such a short scan range. As it currently stands, the KWS is a module used primarily for PvE Bounty Hunting with minor PvP functionality; nobody serious about killing another player is going to bring a KWS, Manifest Scanner, or Wake Scanner to a fight since they are putting a handicap on you by sacrificing a utility mount. It would be a different scenario if these scanners could be built-into the Sensors module (with higher-grade sensors having more funtionality).

 

[biohazard15]

The rewards are being beefed up in 3.0 substantially. But I do agree about the limpet controllers, which they are looking at a solution which my come in 3.0 live. We will see.

The only reward for a pirate is the amount of cargo they were able to steal. And I don't see anything in 3.0 that would buff the price of said cargo.

Limpet controller racks are only a part of solution. The problem is way deeper - the whole process needs to be redesigned and made easier. As it stands now, you have to:

- Interdict target
- Scan it with manifest scanner (optional, but it's kinda pointless to steal biowaste)
- Somehow stop victim from jumping out (kill power plant, or kill thrusters, and hope that victim is not a pro in rebooting)
- Use hatch breaker limpet on victim's cargo hatch (or try to shoot cargo hatch and hope you don't hit anything vital)
- Use collector limpet to collect cargo

This is the most complicated, most challenging (in a bad way) and most time-consuming piracy system in the whole history of space simulators. Probably even in the whole history of video games. No wonder the piracy in ED is dead.

 

[n13L5]

With a system change made for PvP, you are about to completely break the reputation system as it relates to kill missions and bounty hunting in general...?


Intent on shutting down the game, by driving everybody away from playing it?

"crime and punishment" Do you really think that is the QOL improvement everybody needed? At least design it so it affects PvP and nothing else (which is currently working ok).



Well, I assume you would like to see more people play in open, and this will do the trick? Possible, but don't drive off PVE players by breaking current game play with crazy one-by-one bounty treatment in PvE. Every public place in the game is already so unfriendly, its absurd! Docking computer gets you stuck somewhere - station threatens with elimination... such things are annoying, just annoying.

 

[Sylow]

I like the concept of the KWS legitimizing attacks on criminal players, but I could not justify using a KWS on a PvP-fit ship since it takes up a very precious utility slot (which would be infinitely better used with a shield booster, heat sink, or chaff launcher) and has such a short scan range. As it currently stands, the KWS is a module used primarily for PvE Bounty Hunting with minor PvP functionality; nobody serious about killing another player is going to bring a KWS, Manifest Scanner, or Wake Scanner to a fight since they are putting a handicap on you by sacrificing a utility mount. It would be a different scenario if these scanners could be built-into the Sensors module (with higher-grade sensors having more funtionality).

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Now you're cutting into a completely different topic: the value of utility slots, especially shield boosters. Just imagine there would be diminishing returns, so carrying more than two or three shield boosters would not improve things any more, you'd see a much bigger variety of utilities used again and bringing a KWS wouldn't be any issue any more.
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Unfortunately the community managed to cry this away twice already. I don't know if FD will ever dare to give it another shot, although it would really be desireable for the game. But as long as there's the hope that the shield booster dominance will be broken at some time, the KWS change is reasonable.
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Also as a sidenote, maybe that's why we don't have pirates but only psychos in the game? I guess it's the very same mindset: Having an actual cargo hold and, shiver at the thought, perhaps even a hatch breaker limpet controller, takes away from combat equipment, so people don't have that... it sure would explain some of the "pirates" here... *g*
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[madbilly]

Exactly! And if the devs think that people with loads of crimes would get unreasonable bounties if killed there is a simple solution that doesn't involve trashing the KWS loads of more complicated stuff and enough handwavium to power a cruise ship! - Reduce the crime penalties!

I mean right now in live the penalty for murder at 5000c or whatever is way too low, now if the devs think what they've put it too could be too high then you know...reduce it a bit yeah? I mean wasn't that supposed to be the point of the beta? To work out where numbers like this should be at?

"Oh no we have to reprogram half the game because we set the murder bounties too high" seems an exceptionally warped way for them to try and defend these changes! Just mindboggling bad development choices!

Yep. It seems far too complicated than it needs to be. Maybe there's something they're not sharing with us because they think it will muddy the waters even further.

 

[Evoflash]

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

Hi Sandro,

I appreciate the difficulty of this task given the C&P changes however the use of KWS currently in anarchy systems is critical. Without it I see no point in engaging combat in an anarchy system, and hence I'm likely to avoid anarchy systems as they have reduced interest.

Offseting this somewhat is the legitimised attack for any aligned superpower bounty. That makes massive sense.

All the best

Evoflash

 

[CMDR Relick]

Hello Commanders!

We’ve been going through the feedback for the Kill Warrant Scanner (as always, thank you for your input!) and wanted to clarify why the module has changed, as well as float an idea for your consideration.

As part of the crime update, we now place bounties on ships, which are cleared one jurisdiction at a time. This means that when criminals are processed, their captors only care about crimes relevant to their jurisdiction. Because other bounties remain, there is more consequence, as Commanders risk losing their ship multiple times if they have multiple bounties.

However, this caused an issue with the Kill Warrant scanner. The new system runs on the principle that only one bounty is cleared at a time at a detention centre, which does not work with the old version of the Kill Warrant Scanner, as it detected all bounties.

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.

So we changed the Kill Warrant Scanner to detect the single largest bounty. This would allow the villain to be destroyed multiple times, and over time would allow all the bounties to be claimed. However, there is no denying that it significantly reduces the earning potential of the module.

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

That being said, we are considering (and just that, no ETA or guarantee, this is just something we’re mulling over) a change to the KWS.

It’s somewhat significant, so we’d like to get some feedback on the concept before deciding any next step.


Kill Warrant Scanner Serving Suggestion

• Upon a successful scan, the KWS will detect every bounty for factions aligned with the same superpower as the faction controlling the current jurisdiction.
  • E.g. if you’re in a jurisdiction controlled by an Imperial aligned faction, then the KWS will detect every bounty on the scanned ship issued by all Imperial aligned factions.
• What’s more, the KWS scan will *legitimise* attack against the scanned ship for you and any wingmen. This freedom to attack will expire once the target leaves the location, via supercruise, hyperspace jump or the like.
  
  
• The KWS will detect all Interstellar bounties on a target vessel. However, it does not legitimise attack, so you still will have to break the law to collect them if the Interstellar bounty is for a different superpower than the current jurisdiction is alinged to.

This change would bring the Kill Warrant Scanners closer to its original specification, especially regarding earning potential, improve it in some contextually appropriate situations by legitimising attack, limit its power where appropriate by hiding non-local independent bounties and fit neatly within the lore of how the game deals with criminality and factions.

So now, over to you. Do you think this proposal give the KWS enough kick? Does it punish/threaten criminals too much? Is the mechanic clear enough? In short, have a gander and tell us what you think. A final reminder, this is just a suggestion that we're looking at, not a definite plan.

Your feedback is greatly appreciated!

Sandro, I think that if you want to try and encourage player vs player bounty hunting you need to go a step farther here.

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Kill Warrant Scanner Serving Suggestion

• Upon a successful scan, the KWS will detect every bounty for factions aligned with the same superpower as the faction controlling the current jurisdiction.
  • E.g. if you’re in a jurisdiction controlled by an Imperial aligned faction, then the KWS will detect every bounty on the scanned ship issued by all Imperial aligned factions.
• What’s more, the KWS scan will *legitimise* attack against the scanned ship for you and any wingmen. This freedom to attack will expire once the target leaves the location, via supercruise, hyperspace jump or the like.
  
  
• The KWS will detect all Interstellar bounties on a target vessel. However, it does not legitimise attack, so you still will have to break the law to collect them if the Interstellar bounty is for a different superpower than the current jurisdiction is alinged to.

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It's really important that you think about how hard and time consuming that it actually is to locate and collect upon another player with a bounty that is worth bothering with. Managing to kill someone who's racked up a high bounty should be a rewarding experience. I know that you're super worried about people using PC BH as a credit exploit, but you can still cap the possible gains. Please consider raising the total possible credit amount that you can collect on to something more along the 50,000,000cr mark (or even higher!).

This game portrays a supposedly dangerous galaxy, no? As someone who has tendencies to partake in actions that could, under the new system, see myself losing quite a bit of credits on a death (because of a massive bounty/ies earned) I really wish that it was possible to collect more on a kill.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Sandro,

Since I see your responses to my post, and my responses to your responses, repeated in chunks across various posts, I thought I would compile it all in one post for clarity and to make sure I'm understanding your proposal(s) correctly.

1. The kill Warrant Scanner becomes a "force multiplier" for the superpower that is aligned with the current jurisdiction, meaning it will improve your efforts working for that controlling Superpower
a. Independents local factions, for the purposes of the KWS, become aligned with the controlling superpower (as in they've all signed a treaty for KWS usage).
b. A successful KWS scan reveals all bounties for factions aligned with the superpower controlling the current jurisdiction: Federal bounties in Fed controlled system, Empire bounties in Imperial controlled system, Alliance bounties in Alliance controlled systems, and Independent bounties in a non-aligned/independent system.
c. Local factions affiliated with super powers other than the controlling faction are "left out in the cold" because they are an opposing faction, so no bounties are discovered for them.

2. No bounties can be detected in anarchy systems, making them safe havens for criminals.

3. The KWS scan legitimises attack for any bounty detected.
a. This also prevents faction loss from the wanted ship's faction for killing it (i.e. certifying a clean kill, much as you don't lose faction when killing ships in a CZ), assuming they are not a criminal or anarchy group.

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

If I've restated all that correctly, then it sounds good to me; if I haven't, please correct me! In some ways it's not as good as in 2.4, but in other ways I think it is better. It certainly makes more logical sense in relation to the political landscape regarding the perks of not supporting a superpower that is opposed to the one controlling the system. Anarchy systems being safe havens for criminals also makes sense.

 

[Faded Glory]

1. "* The KWS scan legitimises attack for any bounty detected." Um, I'm actually opposed to this if NPCs have KWS. This would mean we could come under fire for bounties incurred in a system far, far away (and unrelated in affiliation). Thus if we commit any kind of crime anywhere, we're all going to be forced to flee to Anarchy systems. That's not good.

4. This is an interesting question. It's only bounty hunters (as far as NPCs are concerned) that would trigger this response, so the jury is out for me as to whether this would be a negative or a positive.

I'll just pop my two pennies worth in on this...

As a player who does not play a criminal (and who doesn't use a KWS), this issue would irritate me no end. I rarely get bounties, in my current gameplay, only small ones for trespass for those planetary scan missions. Right now they are a non-issue as they expire in a few minutes, in the new system not much of an issue as I can pay them off at my leisure at IF and only have to pay attention to not revisit the jurisdictional scene of the crime before doing so, which is fine.

But having to pay them off after every mission or face being pestered by NPC bounty hunters (of course, you may very well set the threshold for NPC bounty hunters to spawn much higher than a few 500 credit bounties) would essentially have me strike that mission template from my gameplay.

You've spent the last few years making bounties something that don't deter legitimate gameplay by making them jurisdictional, but if the changes you make to the KWS essentially make every bounty a potential superpower bounty I believe you may do entirely the opposite, and that's just PvE.

As far as PvP goes (and this would not affect me at all as a solo player, so take these ramblings from that perspective), surely you give the potential 'seal clubber' the opportunity to prey on unsuspecting players who may be unaware that despite having no wanted warning in their HUD (due to that mistaken assault or trespass bounty they got a wile ago in a different system) they are now legitimate prey for any player who decides to fit a KWS. And even if they are aware, surely this is no encouragement to players to play the criminal role and not much of an encouragement for playing in open either (both things you say you'd like to encourage), if it paints a big target on their ship.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

As far as PvP goes (and this would not affect me at all as a solo player, so take these ramblings from that perspective), surely you give the potential 'seal clubber' the opportunity to prey on unsuspecting players who may be unaware that despite having no wanted warning in their HUD (due to that mistaken assault or trespass bounty they got a wile ago in a different system) they are now legitimate prey for any player who decides to fit a KWS. And even if they are aware, surely this is no encouragement to players to play the criminal role and not much of an encouragement for playing in open either (both things you say you'd like to encourage), if it paints a big target on their ship.

Well, that's by definition, though. The more consequences you add to crimes to try to deter murderers from murdering ... the more consequences there are for crimes when criminals get killed.

Due to the disadvantages of owning a "hot" ship even if the bounty isn't in the local jurisdiction when it comes to outfitting and similar, I think most people other than career criminals will tend to clean small bounties off their ships sooner rather than later ... and career criminals should be in good enough ships to escape the occasional bounty hunter.

Plus the KWS only works in local space, so you already have to be interdicted by the attacker and they have to stick around long enough for the KWS to complete (longer if you boost around and try to stay out of their scan cone) before they get authorisation to fire. I don't think we're going to see a massive number of people speculatively pulling players out of supercruise on the off-chance that they *might* have a bounty in the current superpower.

This, incidentally, does make me think that this proposal should keep the superpower-scale bounties, even though they're not strictly necessary. People with major bounties should show up as such from supercruise without the need for KWS - the difference between "an approved bounty hunter can legally hunt them down here" and "their crimes are so severe they're legally killable by anyone throughout the superpower jurisdiction"

 

[Sylow]

This, incidentally, does make me think that this proposal should keep the superpower-scale bounties, even though they're not strictly necessary. People with major bounties should show up as such from supercruise without the need for KWS - the difference between "an approved bounty hunter can legally hunt them down here" and "their crimes are so severe they're legally killable by anyone throughout the superpower jurisdiction"

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Makes sense to me. I'd like this.
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[Faded Glory]

Well, that's by definition, though. The more consequences you add to crimes to try to deter murderers from murdering ... the more consequences there are for crimes when criminals get killed.

Due to the disadvantages of owning a "hot" ship even if the bounty isn't in the local jurisdiction when it comes to outfitting and similar, I think most people other than career criminals will tend to clean small bounties off their ships sooner rather than later ... and career criminals should be in good enough ships to escape the occasional bounty hunter.

Plus the KWS only works in local space, so you already have to be interdicted by the attacker and they have to stick around long enough for the KWS to complete (longer if you boost around and try to stay out of their scan cone) before they get authorisation to fire. I don't think we're going to see a massive number of people speculatively pulling players out of supercruise on the off-chance that they *might* have a bounty in the current superpower.

This, incidentally, does make me think that this proposal should keep the superpower-scale bounties, even though they're not strictly necessary. People with major bounties should show up as such from supercruise without the need for KWS - the difference between "an approved bounty hunter can legally hunt them down here" and "their crimes are so severe they're legally killable by anyone throughout the superpower jurisdiction"

As I said, the paragraph you quoted is really just me rambling as I don't play in open, so the only real relevant line in that paragraph is how I cannot see this particular change incentivizing anyone to play in open if it is possible for them to be a legitimate target for another player when their crimes have been due to legitimate gameplay elsewhere.

The stuff about the potential 'irritation' for PvE gameplay stands. I've said before, players don't play games to be 'punished', at least, I don't. If doing legitimate gameplay makes it so that playing becomes less fun (because for example I've got to fly to an IF every time I get a silly trespass bounty), then that's just going to reduce the amount of time I bother to engage in that gameplay. I really don't think that's what Sandro wants.

 

[Sylow]

The stuff about the potential 'irritation' for PvE gameplay stands. I've said before, players don't play games to be 'punished', at least, I don't. If doing legitimate gameplay makes it so that playing becomes less fun (because for example I've got to fly to an IF every time I get a silly trespass bounty), then that's just going to reduce the amount of time I bother to engage in that gameplay. I really don't think that's what Sandro wants.

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Trespassing gives you a fine, not a bounty. You can just dock and pay it, no need to fly anywhere. That's even true for a stray shot: you don't immediately get a bounty any more. If you do a bit of accidental damage to a non-criminal, you'll first get fined for "reckless weapon discharge". Only if you keep firing, hit the target with several salvos or break the shield and inflict hull damage, it'll be considered as assault. There's even special handling to prevent suicidewinders in the new system.
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I personally consider the "fix" for suicidewinders over the top, as it's rather easy to avoid them: stick to the speed limit. But as FD seems to consider it necessary, i guess it is.
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So all in all, a number of things which now give you a bounty will give you only a fine in the new system. When you end up with a bounty, you overstepped the second line. You were warned before, you knew what was coming. Most likely we will still find some cases where people get a bounty too fast, but the basics are covered and finetuning will happen. I think that part of the new system is quite fine.
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[wstephenson]

This, incidentally, does make me think that this proposal should keep the superpower-scale bounties, even though they're not strictly necessary. People with major bounties should show up as such from supercruise without the need for KWS - the difference between "an approved bounty hunter can legally hunt them down here" and "their crimes are so severe they're legally killable by anyone throughout the superpower jurisdiction"

Shades of the old WANTED -> FUGITIVE progression?

 

[Krystalchan]

I would like to see the KWS get the love that Traders and Pirates are getting. In 3.0 there is now a trade option that allows you to see how many commanders run a trade route in 24hr period. When you have one equipped the Galaxy map is upgraded to show a heatmap of issued bounties or active bounties in a system and higher grade KWS providing a farther range of for this heat map. This will allow Bounty Hunters to actively hunt down systems that are hot with criminals. For a PvE sense this is great cause you can see what systems will earn you more money. For a PvP sense this is great since it allows you to find more engagements since Commanders who don't care for their criminality will have a higher signature on the heat map.

 

[Faded Glory]

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Trespassing gives you a fine, not a bounty. You can just dock and pay it, no need to fly anywhere. That's even true for a stray shot: you don't immediately get a bounty any more. If you do a bit of accidental damage to a non-criminal, you'll first get fined for "reckless weapon discharge". Only if you keep firing, hit the target with several salvos or break the shield and inflict hull damage, it'll be considered as assault. There's even special handling to prevent suicidewinders in the new system.
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I personally consider the "fix" for suicidewinders over the top, as it's rather easy to avoid them: stick to the speed limit. But as FD seems to consider it necessary, i guess it is.
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So all in all, a number of things which now give you a bounty will give you only a fine in the new system. When you end up with a bounty, you overstepped the second line. You were warned before, you knew what was coming. Most likely we will still find some cases where people get a bounty too fast, but the basics are covered and finetuning will happen. I think that part of the new system is quite fine.
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Nope. Trespass is still a bounty, at least it was in the final beta when I tested it, so if that's changed could you point me to the source? As I said, I really couldn't care less that it's a bounty, the cost is trivial and since you can pay off bounties (which I actually think is a retrograde step, but necessary because it's too easy to pick up bonties for legitimate gameplay), it's simply an irritation if I have to go and find an Interstellar Factors every time I pick one up.

I know about the friendly fire threshold increase and the new weapons discharge fine. Frankly, friendly fire hasn't been an issue for me for a long time, but judging from the forum feedback during the beta it still is for some.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Nope. Trespass is still a bounty, at least it was in the final beta when I tested it, so if that's changed could you point me to the source? As I said, I really couldn't care less that it's a bounty, the cost is trivial and since you can pay off bounties (which I actually think is a retrograde step, but necessary because it's too easy to pick up bonties for legitimate gameplay), it's simply an irritation if I have to go and find an Interstellar Factors every time I pick one up.

I know about the friendly fire threshold increase and the new weapons discharge fine. Frankly, friendly fire hasn't been an issue for me for a long time, but judging from the forum feedback during the beta it still is for some.

Technically, Trespass starts as fines and then goes to a bounty. Unless you scan a private beacon, in which case it's immediately a 500 Cr (sometimes more) bounty.

With the changes in 3.0, you can now pay off that bounty much faster than you could before. You also don't have to worry about (due to possibly having to repeat the mission scan 2-3 times because of a bug) the bounty escalating and having a 24 hour wait (instead of 8 minutes). Now it's just money that needs to be paid off. As long as you have zero notoriety (only gained via murder), you can pay it off right away.

 

[Faded Glory]

Technically, Trespass starts as fines and then goes to a bounty. Unless you scan a private beacon, in which case it's immediately a 500 Cr (sometimes more) bounty.

With the changes in 3.0, you can now pay off that bounty much faster than you could before. You also don't have to worry about (due to possibly having to repeat the mission scan 2-3 times because of a bug) the bounty escalating and having a 24 hour wait (instead of 8 minutes). Now it's just money that needs to be paid off. As long as you have zero notoriety (only gained via murder), you can pay it off right away.

Thanks, I really do understand how it works. And the trespass bounty for the planetary scan missions is exactly the one I'm talking about (if you read my original post here). And frankly, the bug of the mission not completing, which happened to me about 3 times out of many, many missions completed was a total non issue. I just flew away, did another mission or something else for at least 8 minutes and could then go back and redo the mission with another 8 minute bounty gained. Getting anything more than an 8 minute bounty for those missions is entirely avoidable.

My point, which was actually in response to the fact that a bounty, even a trespass one, would potentially be a superpower bounty due to how the new KWS might work, is that it would in fact be much more inconvenient as I would have to pay off that bounty as soon as I finish the mission.

Paying off bounties isn't 'easier' now for those small bounties. Far from it. Currently in game they are gone in eight minutes. I can play for weeks without bothering to visit an IF as the legacy fines mean nothing, have zero impact on gameplay. Now, I will have an active bounty until I actively go and pay it off, and if, as Sandro suggested, NPC bounty hunters will start being given KWS and can thus pester me for my few hundred credit bounty and legally destroy me (and I'm not legally able to defend myself), then that will, at least for me, be a right PITA, and will effectively deter me from the legitimate gameplay of taking planetary scan missions.