Lets talk about Bounty

[Lazerus Artificial]

Sooo...Bounty...
Currently, whenever you commit a crime and dont pay that fine, you get a bounty right?
When he then gets shot, the guy who killed him gets all the money.
But where does that money come from?

There was a talk about the trading bonus for wings, about "magic money well"
and yeah...actually its the same for bounty.
you shoot someone and a magic number appears.

More and more trades go into solo nowdays, less psychos there.

So, as far as i know, the bounty does not scale with the ship you hit.
Its just "ah you hit someone - pay for it"
The guy in the fully loaded T9 is the idiot then...he lost millions of credits, and the pirate got what? a few thousand credits bounty? a bounty that he can loose with a simple suicide mission in a sidewinder?

So yeah, to the suggestion.
I know, many players will be pi**ed now but:
Eve Online did it right.
Players who can set bounty on their own. See a pirate? place a bounty.
Oh man, you have a million bounty on your head? Its not easy to loose it. Everytime you get shot, a percentual value of your ships price is substracted and paid to the killer. So a bounty is something to fear.

So, what would we need to make bounty "fair"?

• "Magic" Bounty needs to scale with the ship you have lost, placed from the faction you are a member of, or the faction in your current system. Not high, just a few percent of your ship+cargo value. Basically a form of insurance.
• Trade Insurance - in such a case, insured cargo loss would not mean the end of your career. You will loose a bit, but not everything.
• Player placed bounty - you HATE a certain pirate? place a few million bounty on his head. let him suffer.
• Bounty-Penalty - it should not be a loss as soon as the pirate dies once from another players guns. He needs to fear the bounty, has to pay for his crimes. Everytime you shoot him, part of his ships value is substracted from his bounty and paid to the killer. Basically you get his repair costs.
• More agressive guards. They are the police afterall. They should guard friendly traders, attack pirates as soon as they see them. Currently they are just "herpderp random security check"
• For the future: with boarding - let us capture the pirates. No magical "respawn", capture him and imprison him in a special "internal module" - a stasis capsule. Then let us sell him.

Also: couldnt you abuse the current system?
Just get a high ship, hunt some players or police ships until you have a few million bounty - switch to a sidewinder and let a friend shoot you, so he earns the money and your crime is gone?

 

[Badd Mongo]

Yes you are right the current bounty system is rather weak, doesnt scale and can be exploited in the manner you describe. This is the possible fix by making 2 changes to game mechanics I posted in the 35 page threadnaught on the issue here: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=123165

1 - Change bounty formula for player kills

For player criminal on NPC crimes or non fatal criminal attacks on a Cmdr's ship keep things as they are now.

But when player criminal kills another Cmdr's ship a different bounty formula gets applied.

1 / The bounty for the crime will be calculated using the formula: (Victim's ship rebuy value + value of victims cargo destroyed) + a % modifier based on the "Infamy" of the crime.

2 / If more than one Cmdr was involved in destroying the victims ship then the bounty will be distributed between all participants who caused at least 15% total damage to the victims ship (so avoid accidental fire getting punished).

3 / The "Infamy" modifier will be calculated based on what ship the victim was flying in relation to the attacker and the victims pilot federation combat rank. So if a Cmdr in a Anaconda destroys a new "harmless" rated player in a Sidewinder that will attract the highest possible Infamy modifier, ie +100%. But someone in a Cobra destroying an Lakon Type-6 might be +20%. But a fairer fight between 2 Cmdrs both in Cobras and at the same rank would get a 0% modifier.

4 / The criminal can still pay off the bounty at a 1 to 1 rate if they wish to repent, but using this sytem the bounty punishment will always fit the crime because as a minimum they are going to have to pay an amount equal to the value caused in damages from ship rebuy and lost cargo by the victim of their crime, plus a bit more if it was an infamous crime. If they are downing transport ships with cargo holds full of expensive metals this is going to lead to the criminal getting a suitably large bounty.

Example:

A player criminal in a Cobra attacks a clean Cmdr in a Lakon Type-6 and destroys it in Federation space.
The victims Lakon Type-6 had a rebuy value of 250k and they lose 100T of cargo valued at 500k.
A Cobra attacking a Type-6 has a 20% infamy modifier

So the bounty given to the criminal for this crime is calculated as:

(250k + 500k) + 20% = 900k Federation bounty which is added to the total of any outstanding bounties the criminal has.

2 - Change the bounty pay out system so it can not be exploited

Rather than pay out a bounty in full when any criminals ship gets destoyed, instead cap the bounty payout to 50% of the value of the ship rebuy cost the criminal was flying when they got destroyed, which then gets deducted from the criminals total bounty.

For example:

Criminal Cmdr A has a 1M bounty.

Cmdr B shoots down Cmdr A's Eagle which had a rebuy value of 100k, so collects 50k (50%) of the rebuy value as bounty payment.

The 50k paid out to Cmdr B is deducted from Cmdr A's original 1M bounty, leaving them with 950k bounty pool outstanding.

Cmdr C then later shoots down Cmdr A's Asp which had a rebuy value of 1M. so collects 500k (50%) of the rebuy value as bounty payment.

The 500k paid out to Cmdr C is deducted from Cmdr A's remaining 950k bounty, leaving them with a 450k bounty which could be claimed by other Cmdrs (or paid off).

Using this system:

1 / Criminal player with the bounty has no way to exploit to clear their bounty by asking their friends to deliberately shoot them down as not only will they lose 50% of their rebuy cost each time, but are also only reducing their bounty by 50% of the rebuy value of their ship each time, thus the cost of clearing a bounty that way amounts to exactly the same as if they just payed it off at a station 1 to 1 to begin with.

2 / It rewards legitimate bounty hunters with higher rewards for taking on and beating the criminal in a more dangerous ship such as an Asp, while only paying out a suitably low amount if the criminal is downed in a cheap fitted starter ship.

3 / Bounty hunting as a profession will suddenly become more viable as Cmdrs who wish to pursue the criminal lifestyle will not be able to clear their bounties off as easily as they can now.

 

[Lazerus Artificial]

*Just snipping the wall of text

Yup, thats exactly what i meant, couldnt describe it any better, so thanks for writing it down.
With that system it would be a challenge to be a pirate, a dangerous busines where a pirate should think twice if he kills his target or just cracks open the cargo.
A Bounty hunter would then be rewarded for his hunt. Payback time!

The two things i would add to this is a functional Cargo Insurance (its shown in the UI but i have never seen a function for it) and a manually placed bounty for when you want to see someone dead.
For example you know the name of a Pirate Wing Leader. The leader himself is "passive" and just smuggles the wares and coordinates the attacks. His wing on the other hand comits the killing and robbing for him, so the Leader wont get the bounty and can savely sell the stolen goods.
So, if you are the unlucky trader who notices this, you can set the bounty yourself. 100M credits on the leaders head.

Obviously it would need restrictions, so that you cant troll the poor sidewinder newb.