This is part of a series I'm posting, giving players who are looking for something to help "get into character" when chatting with other players, writing their stories, or even just posting on the forum. I'll update this as more lists are made available:
Traders: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=115768&p=1797210
Bounty Hunters: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116133&p=1803554
Pirates and Privateers: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116134&p=1803574
Miners: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116644&p=1811584
Explorers: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116536&p=1809874
General Slang: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61871 (This is a great list compiled by Anopheles some time back, which could be seen as a "universal" slang outside of specific occupations if you want)
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Bounty Hunters: Communication-The Key to a Successful Hunt.
Sometimes people call us mercenaries. Nonsense. Mercs are soldiers in the pay of a foreign power, and Hunters are more liberated than that. For some it's a matter of ethics - we don't let someone tell us who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Certainly not in petty sector squabbles based on politics we're not even involved in. We make the call.
But for most of us it's a business, not unlike trading or mining, and we treat it with the same kind of professional respect. That means respecting another Hunter's kill, so he'll do the same for you. Otherwise you end up no better than those bloody pirate "brotherhoods" that inevitably end up as every man for himself. We're better than that.
The key to the hunt isn't guns and fast ships, it's knowledge. Knowing where your Acquisition is will make you the big bucks, and that means keeping your ears open and communicating, either with other Hunters or with the Heavies those bandits prey on. Heck, even rock jockeys hear something once in a while when they're not grooming lice out of their beards.
Since most of our work is done in space, some of our terms hearken back to old earth fighter pilots. Do we share some of the same terms as pirates? Sure. More than one hunter has become a pirate, and vice versa. We also tend to hang out at the same seedy dives - it's the best place to get information on a potential acquisition. Sometimes a bottle of Jeremiah Weed will loosen some lips and get a guy to squeak.
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Action – Any ship to ship engagement
Acquisition – A specific target for a bounty hunter
Bandit - hostile fighter that is not an Acquisition
Battle Buggie - SRV (used offensively)
Beans - limpet mines ("that bandit is dropping his beans")
Betty - the voice of your cockpit computer, sometimes embellished to reflect her nagging attitude.
BFM (aka Basic) - Basic Fighter Maneuvers. Dogfighting. Basically a lot of turning.
Blast Proof – A Hunter with zero insurance claims
Blood Money – Money lost in the pursuit of an Acquisition, typically in the form of fines.
Bloodsuckers – Collectors of those fines.
Check six - warning to look out behind you.
Club – High powered weapons like rail guns, with the intention of taking out subsystems.
Code Three - ship is heavily damaged, in need of repairs. Code Two is damaged but still in the fight. Code One is in perfect working order.
Coreward – Towards the heavily populated center of human space, or towards the capital planet of one faction (ie, Sol)
Deep Hunting – Lurking along the edges of civilized space.
Disco Ship - A large sized ship covered in laser turrets
Foul - inflicting or receiving friendly fire.
Fox One - Dumbfire missle
Fox Two - Guided missile
Fox Three - Torpedo
Fox Four - A joke referring to a wasted missile fired for no good reason - the joke being they must have fired off a special secret "anti-Thargoid" missile that doesn't exist.
Freeze – Space. (as in the Deep Freeze)
Ghosting - using Silent Running to close in on an acquisition or otherwise tail them unseen.
Gotcha – A determent on an Acquisition that might limit the revenues that could be collected or cause the hunter other problems. For example, a big bounty but against a faction you are allied with and might result in reputation loss.
Grubs – Derogatory term for typical citizens
Guns – any weapons mounted on a ship, be they lasers, multicanons, or plasma accelerators.
Heavy - large and weakly defended cargo transports, usually the Lakon series.
Hit and Run - a quick raid on a base, focused on the objective and rapid escape
Hostile - enemy fighter, but not your Acquisition (see bandit)
Hundred Club – Acquisitions worth over 100,000 credits for an individual
Hunt – Tracking down an Acquisition.
Hunter – Typical shorthand for bounty hunter
Iron Ass - A ship that is as tricked out with enough hardware to hold its own in the most dangerous of systems("Wow. That Cobra has an iron ass.")
Jeremiah Weed - refers to top-shelf alcohol, regardless of its actual name (for example, Indi Bourbon). The preferred brand will vary from sector to sector. Often drunk to celebrate a big score.
Long zone – the route to a station more than 100,000ls from a Nav Beacon.
Master Hunter – Bounty hunter with a combat rating of Master or higher and at least ten bounties in the Hundred Club under their belt. While specific rankings can be mentioned in other circumstances, even an Elite bounty hunter is referred to as a Master Hunter.
Mile High Club - A bounty worth over 1,000,000 credits from a single faction.
Most Wanted – Those with the highest bounties on them, often appearing in GalNet news streams.
Ninja - To steal a kill (and bounty) from someone else.
On your six (on my six) - behind you, or more generally, on an intercept course with you.
On your twelve (on my twelve) - ahead of you, or more generally, whoever you're pursuing.
Paycheck – Bounties collected that need to be cashed at a station. “You’re just a paycheck.”
Penalty Box – When a bounty hunter incurs a bounty on their own head due to friendly fire or not getting a proper kill warrant before opening fire. Can refer to simply the cooling down period for the bounty or the system they bail out to during said period. Also see Sin Bin.
Petty Cash (Pin Money) – Small time bounties under 1000 credits, often just due to minor infractions. Not worth the time of the hunter.
Pickle - to barrage a target with missiles (typically dumbfire) "I pickled the Python before it could turn its guns on me."
Pigs In Space - denotes poor flying skill
Popcorn - Used by large ships such as Anacondas to describe getting attacked by smaller easily destroyed ships like Sidewinders, Condors, and the like.
Power Up - Using Materials to enhance weapons damage.
Pull leather – To support another hunter in a hunt, or take up arms in their defense.
Push it up - increase throttle
Queep - dealing with the paperwork in collecting a bounty - alternately, the tedium of having to fly to multiple sectors to collect bounties from different factions.
Red Flag - a combat zone (Low intensity or High intensity). Tends to be avoided unless Slumming it.
Retire (ie "Encouraged to retire early") - Assassination Euphemism
Rimward – leaving civilized space, out towards the rim.
Rock Jockey - a miner
Sandbag - someone that's just coming along for the ride. This could be a passenger/observer in your ship meant to verify a kill, or an inexperienced hunter who is following along but won't be very useful.
Shareout – dividing kills between Hunters. Taking turns to get the kill shot
Shield Potion - Using a Shield Cell Boost
Short zone – a station within 1000ls of a nav beacon
Sin Bin - See Penalty Box.
Slumming it – Temporarily taking on Mercenary work in a conflict zone.
Smash and Grab - base raid achieved by destroying all opposition before taking what you need
SNAFU - Situation Normal, All (expletive) Up. For example, when a hunt goes very wrong and suddenly you're the one being hunted.
Sniff - using any kind of scanner on a ship to determine if a target has a bounty, are carrying illegal goods, track their wake signals, etc...
Spaced – Ship destroyed
Squeak – information obtained about an Acquisition, either through a person or on the news. “I heard a squeak on GalNet about him yesterday.”
Squeaker – someone who provides information on an Acquisition’s location.
Surface Raid - attack on a base using ships or SRVs.
Transit – moving to a station from a nav beacon.
Two-Timer – an acquisition with multiple bounties posted against them, either in different systems or major factions.
Vac Suited Sun God - derogatory term for military fighter pilots. They tend to be viewed as arrogant.
Zoning – laying in wait for an Acquisition, such as at a nav beacon. Also called “lurking”, “lurking the zone” or “cruising the zone” (if flying looking for USSs).
Traders: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=115768&p=1797210
Bounty Hunters: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116133&p=1803554
Pirates and Privateers: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116134&p=1803574
Miners: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116644&p=1811584
Explorers: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=116536&p=1809874
General Slang: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=61871 (This is a great list compiled by Anopheles some time back, which could be seen as a "universal" slang outside of specific occupations if you want)
-----
Bounty Hunters: Communication-The Key to a Successful Hunt.
Sometimes people call us mercenaries. Nonsense. Mercs are soldiers in the pay of a foreign power, and Hunters are more liberated than that. For some it's a matter of ethics - we don't let someone tell us who deserves to live and who deserves to die. Certainly not in petty sector squabbles based on politics we're not even involved in. We make the call.
But for most of us it's a business, not unlike trading or mining, and we treat it with the same kind of professional respect. That means respecting another Hunter's kill, so he'll do the same for you. Otherwise you end up no better than those bloody pirate "brotherhoods" that inevitably end up as every man for himself. We're better than that.
The key to the hunt isn't guns and fast ships, it's knowledge. Knowing where your Acquisition is will make you the big bucks, and that means keeping your ears open and communicating, either with other Hunters or with the Heavies those bandits prey on. Heck, even rock jockeys hear something once in a while when they're not grooming lice out of their beards.
Since most of our work is done in space, some of our terms hearken back to old earth fighter pilots. Do we share some of the same terms as pirates? Sure. More than one hunter has become a pirate, and vice versa. We also tend to hang out at the same seedy dives - it's the best place to get information on a potential acquisition. Sometimes a bottle of Jeremiah Weed will loosen some lips and get a guy to squeak.
-----
Action – Any ship to ship engagement
Acquisition – A specific target for a bounty hunter
Bandit - hostile fighter that is not an Acquisition
Battle Buggie - SRV (used offensively)
Beans - limpet mines ("that bandit is dropping his beans")
Betty - the voice of your cockpit computer, sometimes embellished to reflect her nagging attitude.
BFM (aka Basic) - Basic Fighter Maneuvers. Dogfighting. Basically a lot of turning.
Blast Proof – A Hunter with zero insurance claims
Blood Money – Money lost in the pursuit of an Acquisition, typically in the form of fines.
Bloodsuckers – Collectors of those fines.
Check six - warning to look out behind you.
Club – High powered weapons like rail guns, with the intention of taking out subsystems.
Code Three - ship is heavily damaged, in need of repairs. Code Two is damaged but still in the fight. Code One is in perfect working order.
Coreward – Towards the heavily populated center of human space, or towards the capital planet of one faction (ie, Sol)
Deep Hunting – Lurking along the edges of civilized space.
Disco Ship - A large sized ship covered in laser turrets
Foul - inflicting or receiving friendly fire.
Fox One - Dumbfire missle
Fox Two - Guided missile
Fox Three - Torpedo
Fox Four - A joke referring to a wasted missile fired for no good reason - the joke being they must have fired off a special secret "anti-Thargoid" missile that doesn't exist.
Freeze – Space. (as in the Deep Freeze)
Ghosting - using Silent Running to close in on an acquisition or otherwise tail them unseen.
Gotcha – A determent on an Acquisition that might limit the revenues that could be collected or cause the hunter other problems. For example, a big bounty but against a faction you are allied with and might result in reputation loss.
Grubs – Derogatory term for typical citizens
Guns – any weapons mounted on a ship, be they lasers, multicanons, or plasma accelerators.
Heavy - large and weakly defended cargo transports, usually the Lakon series.
Hit and Run - a quick raid on a base, focused on the objective and rapid escape
Hostile - enemy fighter, but not your Acquisition (see bandit)
Hundred Club – Acquisitions worth over 100,000 credits for an individual
Hunt – Tracking down an Acquisition.
Hunter – Typical shorthand for bounty hunter
Iron Ass - A ship that is as tricked out with enough hardware to hold its own in the most dangerous of systems("Wow. That Cobra has an iron ass.")
Jeremiah Weed - refers to top-shelf alcohol, regardless of its actual name (for example, Indi Bourbon). The preferred brand will vary from sector to sector. Often drunk to celebrate a big score.
Long zone – the route to a station more than 100,000ls from a Nav Beacon.
Master Hunter – Bounty hunter with a combat rating of Master or higher and at least ten bounties in the Hundred Club under their belt. While specific rankings can be mentioned in other circumstances, even an Elite bounty hunter is referred to as a Master Hunter.
Mile High Club - A bounty worth over 1,000,000 credits from a single faction.
Most Wanted – Those with the highest bounties on them, often appearing in GalNet news streams.
Ninja - To steal a kill (and bounty) from someone else.
On your six (on my six) - behind you, or more generally, on an intercept course with you.
On your twelve (on my twelve) - ahead of you, or more generally, whoever you're pursuing.
Paycheck – Bounties collected that need to be cashed at a station. “You’re just a paycheck.”
Penalty Box – When a bounty hunter incurs a bounty on their own head due to friendly fire or not getting a proper kill warrant before opening fire. Can refer to simply the cooling down period for the bounty or the system they bail out to during said period. Also see Sin Bin.
Petty Cash (Pin Money) – Small time bounties under 1000 credits, often just due to minor infractions. Not worth the time of the hunter.
Pickle - to barrage a target with missiles (typically dumbfire) "I pickled the Python before it could turn its guns on me."
Pigs In Space - denotes poor flying skill
Popcorn - Used by large ships such as Anacondas to describe getting attacked by smaller easily destroyed ships like Sidewinders, Condors, and the like.
Power Up - Using Materials to enhance weapons damage.
Pull leather – To support another hunter in a hunt, or take up arms in their defense.
Push it up - increase throttle
Queep - dealing with the paperwork in collecting a bounty - alternately, the tedium of having to fly to multiple sectors to collect bounties from different factions.
Red Flag - a combat zone (Low intensity or High intensity). Tends to be avoided unless Slumming it.
Retire (ie "Encouraged to retire early") - Assassination Euphemism
Rimward – leaving civilized space, out towards the rim.
Rock Jockey - a miner
Sandbag - someone that's just coming along for the ride. This could be a passenger/observer in your ship meant to verify a kill, or an inexperienced hunter who is following along but won't be very useful.
Shareout – dividing kills between Hunters. Taking turns to get the kill shot
Shield Potion - Using a Shield Cell Boost
Short zone – a station within 1000ls of a nav beacon
Sin Bin - See Penalty Box.
Slumming it – Temporarily taking on Mercenary work in a conflict zone.
Smash and Grab - base raid achieved by destroying all opposition before taking what you need
SNAFU - Situation Normal, All (expletive) Up. For example, when a hunt goes very wrong and suddenly you're the one being hunted.
Sniff - using any kind of scanner on a ship to determine if a target has a bounty, are carrying illegal goods, track their wake signals, etc...
Spaced – Ship destroyed
Squeak – information obtained about an Acquisition, either through a person or on the news. “I heard a squeak on GalNet about him yesterday.”
Squeaker – someone who provides information on an Acquisition’s location.
Surface Raid - attack on a base using ships or SRVs.
Transit – moving to a station from a nav beacon.
Two-Timer – an acquisition with multiple bounties posted against them, either in different systems or major factions.
Vac Suited Sun God - derogatory term for military fighter pilots. They tend to be viewed as arrogant.
Zoning – laying in wait for an Acquisition, such as at a nav beacon. Also called “lurking”, “lurking the zone” or “cruising the zone” (if flying looking for USSs).
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