The Bounty Hunting & Bounties tips, and general discussion thread

[Lobstris]

Said it earlier today (and oft before) that I'd like to see stealth back in the game. The trouble with silent running (for me) was the whole you have to have your shields down thing. If you could get away with one ring to shields in silent running, or shields came back to minimal strength a lot faster it would offset the penalty.
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Another issue with stealth is the whole implementation of different grades of sensors and weapon ranges. Dogfighting in Elite is a bit too much 'knife fight in a post box'. I feel that with longer sensor and weapon ranges, plus the use of drones/other ships to relay targeting information (it's in the novels ) things could be more interesting (at some loss of the close-in, 'visual' dogfighting style). Add in actually having bases/structures/more stuff to hide behind in asteroid fields and around stations (a la the CQC maps) and again hiding could come into its own.
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As for cloaking devices? True 'Klingon' cloaks - no. Deployable, disposable mylar/fabric shields to hide behind whilst waiting for an ambush. Yes. Again, I'll point at the novels - Mr Brookes himself uses one such object as a plot device.

 

[Shizuka]

Silent running mechanics are good as they are, silent running doesnt make you dissapear completely and thats something good, what i am agreed is tht we need more modules, but a lot of them so we can build several ships and play with utilities and internals, a Sensor jamming, a fsd jamming device, internals that protect the fsd from jamming, decoys, dunno there are a lot of options.

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Having recently got a seven day bounty for bad driving (it was only an NPC officer!) it seams like a two tier "wanted" status might make sense:

i) vanilla "Wanted" status for careless drivers and pirates who just steal stuff (fines payable at any station)
ii) a "Psycho" status for pilots that blow up un-wanted cmdrs (timed bounties that can attract vigilante bounty hunters)


I think there would be a worthwhile amount of interest in a reward system for pilots to track down rogue psycho pilots. A list of "most wanted player characters" similar to the existing lists of most wanted NPCs at each station.

I've been blown up a few times by players, but only once by a psycho who dind't want cargo though, and a couple of times by NPCs. In the heat of the moment I didn't get the psychos name but his dialog was very funny; he clearly knew the mechanics inside out as he took my ship apart. I'd love the chance to get my own back in similar future situations if a list was available. The Psycho bounties wouldn't need to last as long as a week, but maybe a few hours or days would mean it wasn't completely impossible to get by as a psycho, or to have a little episode here and there )

It would fit in with existing realism as the system already "knows" the various combatants wanted status'.


On a slightly related note, why does a space station open fire on a ship carrying imperial slaves rather than disabling it and freeing the slaves? (Surely that should make the space station turn on itself and blow itself up?) My bad driving bounty meant I had to quickly jump to another system with just 20% hull integrity to save ~400tons of imperial slaves from vaporization!)

That top 5 wanted list in stations is human players, don't expect to see any in Open play though..

What you describe is already sort of in place:
Speeding: Shield damage = fine
Speeding: Hull damage = bigger fine
Speeding: Ship destroyed = bounty

Use a docking computer or dock slower to avoid mishaps. I do agree that the police need to be better equipped to deal with murderers and that bounties should be higher for murder, just don't think anything needs changing on how bounties are given out at the moment or the time delay in paying off wanted status etc.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

This thread speaks to me. I too agree there should be multiple levels of wanted, and the game should recognize that. A single assault charge should not be treated the same way as a month of mass murder.

 

[Jim Steinman]

Silent running seems a lot tighter than it used to be, in other words you are more likely to be picked up when smuggling. So far on one of my runs today I've been picked up 3/3 when in silent running.

 

[Shizuka]

A cmdr who killed another cmdr should be banned for solo and groups until the bounty time ends, and the time counter should be in game only, so if you log out the timer stop.

Im telling this as a pirate, i started to create chaos in open play a week or two ago, and i had no problems more than a stupid police force that i can scape everytime.

 

[Mendelt]

Maybe killing another CMDR should lead to a bounty with the Pilots Federation that will lead to a Wanted status in all systems.

edit: Make that all non anarchy systems. Wanted status in an anarchy system would be weird.

 

[insanephoton]

To be honest the silent running for smuggling never really made much sense. You can't sneak in and dock unnoticed and if you don't announce yourself to the station they are likely to shoot you. Maybe in Horizons it might make more sense trying not to be detected.
As for the training module, the last time I tried it (quite some time ago) it was essentially impossible to complete as ,as the Cobra would instantly spot you as soon as you attacked a fighter and couldn't be shaken.

 

[dead_rock]

+1 for more love for silent running!

I want smuggling to be more viable and diverse.

This loadout is quite fun for me atm for smuggling missions and trades, the retrieval missions are where silent running could really shine.
I was attacked once while picking up the canisters - if the silent running feature would've kept me off the radar of those shady lurkers...
Imagine the possibilities!

 

[DrBubbles]

Thanks I didn't realize the top five were players. Good point about them not likely being in open space though; Shizuka's idea about human kill bounties timing down only in open space might be a good way to make indiscriminate human kills have more consequence. Although in that case maybe 7x24 hours would be a bit much. Maybe can have an open court where pilots can plead their case and get votes from a "jury" )

 

[CATPAIN KIRK]

Whilst I agree it should be buffed, I fly shieldless combat fits relying on silent running quite a lot. Works best on the Diamondback family, but Morbad recently posted a video doing it in a Clipper.

Tried it using an FdL, but Imho that ship isn't suited too well for it (gets heavy and expensive with armor, hull reinforcements and uses a lot of heatsinks.

[Edit]: Found Morbads video - here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iHfCAK4Rg5A

 

[M00ka]

I created a post about this, suggesting different tiers of 'Wanted' with corresponding bounties and penalties:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=170699

 

[Quineloe]

A cmdr who killed another cmdr should be banned for solo and groups until the bounty time ends, and the time counter should be in game only, so if you log out the timer stop.

Im telling this as a pirate, i started to create chaos in open play a week or two ago, and i had no problems more than a stupid police force that i can scape everytime.

So, just buy a sidewinder and crash it to access solo again? Never mind that player killers don't hide in solo anyways.

 

[Tenshi]

I think the fine system is ok as it is, what does need to change though is the bounty that a player gets for killing another player illegally. At the moment it is 5000 credits for taking a single life, either life in 3300 is cheap or credits that commanders earn are more valuable than what the regular citizen receives as wages.

 

[DnAuK]

Only if you outright killed some one you shouldn't have. Otherwise it should be just a few minutes on the timer. If you did kill some one, simply just go to another system. There are hundreds out there that are great for RES farming. FYI the bounty does not follow you out of system. So if you just hop one system over you wont be wanted.

I thought this too, but after amassing a 100k bounty in a system following some undermining, I then got attacked in other systems once I got scanned! Admittedly as soon as they attacked me I could retaliate, but it meant I had to spend time getting 400c kills, instead of the ships I was looking for.

 

[awsomest maximus]

granted i'm a noob, but i find bounty hunting to be very profitable, thing is you "MUST" have a kill warrant scanner. target a ship and while you wait for targeting to confirm clean or wanted you use your kill warrant scanner. once scans are complete light em up. if they have any warrants in other systems (witch is in most cases) you will find under contacts that you have credits due in various other places. at times i've found millions sitting there because i forget to go back and check, although it can be a bummer to have to go and collect them, i use that opportunity to haul trade items. also keep in mind that if you die you will lose all uncollected bounties and your insurance does not cover this.

 

[KellyR]

Yep. Just jump to another system and you won't be wanted; unless they have a kill warrant scanner. But usually only Cmdrs. carry those. I never understood why NPC's, Especially Naval NPC's don't carry them. I understand why normal system authority ships wouldn't. "Not our job to hunt other people's criminals". Maybe they're only available to those who graduated the Pilot's Federation training program.

 

[rincewindcymru]

Piddling little bounties

If I'm interdicted I try to KWS the offender before destroying them. This has the bonus if adding Empire, Fed or Alliance bounties so more bang for your... bang
The downside of this is you sometimes pick up 400CR bounties for the local system.
Now, I'm an impatient sole so often just continue on my merry way without going to the trouble of cashing these in locally. The problem with that is that my transaction tab is now full of these unclaimed bounties to the total of 12,000CR.
Is there a way to delete, donate or somehow clear these apart from the buy a sidey and get killed.

 

[ForeverN00b]

Unfortunately not.
Players have previously asked for a clearinghouse for all those miscellaneous bounty vouchers.
Maybe it could be a PP reward or something.

 

[Sandro Sammarco]

Hello Commander rincewindcymru!

This is something we'd like to address (I believe it's been mentioned before in the forums, there are a few different ways the issue could be dealt with) but it's unlikely to be anytime soon as it's quite low priority.