Thanks for all the answers guys. More interdictions is bad for the smuggling business. All those tasty shadow delivery missions are fail on ship scan, and it doesn't have to be the cops, a scan from an NPC has caused me to fail all my missions before.
Sounds like the Robigo runs and power play don't mix. I hear people say they make 20 mil in one hour bounty hunting after achieving some rank which they have to keep up weekly. Do you guys pull in that kind of cash and is it worth it?
Someone mentioned exiting power play. I had read that there are consequences if you abandon your power/faction w/e. Can you just remove yourself from power play w/no penalty (so I can just give it a shot and if I don't like it no harm no foul?)
Edit: I much prefer combat to smuggling or trading, which is why I'm asking about the bounty hunting.
Thanks for taking the time to answer, I do appreciate it.
Leaving a faction only means you get stuck with more interdictions for a period of time. Depending on your rank that can vary from half a day to almost a week - then it stops, back to normal.
20 million an hour is possible, but you need to do two things; join a Bounty Hunting faction like Zachary Hudson, and attain Rank 5.
I maintain Rank 4 in ZH at the moment because it suits me better, but I still see ~5-7 milllion/hour even without that last perk, but that last one is big.
It has to do with the mechanics, but it works odd and the numbers are misleading;
Say you kill a target work 20k.
With ZH at No 1 in the standings the Rank 2 bonus is 50%.
So that 20k becomes 30k in controlled areas.
Then when you turn it it, that 30k becomes 45k.
I am not at Rank 5 to see, but I imagine it jumps like that again.
So that 20k becomes 50k first, then turned in for 75k. For shooting one ship.
((20k*100%*50% picked up) * 100% * 50% dropped off) kind of math - there is some kind of odd doubling effect going on with the way it works out. Antal I think technically has a higher final payout bonus for Bounties, but I like ZH.
If you can run efficiently, yeah - I can see 20 million/hour. I admit I am not the best, but there have been runs where I was at 8-10 million - but it depends on the spawns. If you get low-value targets it isn't that much. Hence why I say I average about ~5-7 million. But I don't swap instances repeatedly to get the best opponent spawns.
So yeah, it can pay off. But you gotta be really persistant - and good enough that you don't need to run from fights for a full hour. I admit there are times it gets tricky when you run across a wing of strong ships when you are solo.
A little tip tho; Undermining with a wing of fellow pilots can do wonders to earn merits fastest, but you gotta deal with having your own bounty in most cases.
Another option to keep the rank has a bit higher requirement as you'll want a ship with a large cargo hold of ~400 or so to make fortifying/prep runs; at Rank 5 the 50 million can fast-track the 5k merits worth to keep the rank letting you do whatever the rest of the week. The large hold is better because it's ~50 trips in a 100-cargo ASP, and that takes quite a bit of time.
If you do things like that I'd also suggest check up the reddits for the groups as they are more focused on the goals and can help point you in the right direction, and you can better help the faction do better.
Not to mention the benefits of being around more like-minded folk for the faction.
