NOTICE: Bounty Hunting Line Update

[Seapanda]

So the reason for this change is pretty innocent in my opinion. A whole lot of misunderstanding of the line.

We've received a player request for an additional line to be added to the bounty hunters (which passed) and is being added to all bounty hunting guilds and organisations. However, while we were discussing how to properly word it so it makes sense and isn't confusing or overengineered, we bumped all over the existing line "in pursuit of a contract".

I'll admit, my own interpretation of this line was completely wrong. I saw that line and I thought to myself "So this means Bounty Hunters can attack any ship that is doing a contract". @EisenSeele thought that it meant "Can attack any ship that is contracted". We were both wrong. The feedback we got on that from several people was that the last time ID's were reworked, this line was just really badly worded, and nobody has really bothered fixing it all this time. So while we were working on the new bounty hunter line, I figured, let's update this one's wording so it's clear as to what it's supposed to be. From this thread's replies I can see that we weren't the only ones misunderstanding what the line actually allowed. Granted, to be fully transparent, since I joined staff I have not seen any reports against bounty hunting players, but this could also be attributed to the other side also not understanding the line clearly and what it doesn't allow.


Now to address the above points (If I miss any, please let me know).

• Bounty Hunting contracts, to me at least, mean you hire Chad to go kill Johnny. Chad can go and hunt down Johnny to the edge of Sirius and beyond if he wants to. This line would allow him to do so (so would the old one, but you get my point).
  
• Escort contracts, again to me, mean that you hire Chad to protect your fragile, Kitkat shaped Camara. The "escort" part of the contract implies already, and allows, the bounty hunter to engage any and every ship that is attacking you.
  

Case 2: If C, which is neutral Rep with BH but hostile to E, attacks E - according to the new ID & server rules, BH cannot engage C unless E draws up another contract on the spot making C the target of the contract.

• Now this I like. This is a really good case, so let's see if any admin is gonna contradict me here . So for this case, theoretically, yes Chad would not be required to help you fight off a target that attacks you and is not the target of the contract. It would be down to his own discretion if he wants to protect his employer or keep it strictly to the contract itself. The employer (let's call him Kai) can absolutely, in his fully panicked state with flames coming out of his cockpit issue out a new contract to Chad even as simple as "If you kill this guy I will pay you double". As far as I am concerned, this would be fully acceptable as a contract,
  

Though in seriousness, I am curious as to what may have led to this change. Was there a situation where the ID line was abused or twisted somehow, or a danger of it discovered? Or just future proofing things? It does seemingly create an odd gray area for escort contracts for FL IDs, since the ID has the line

- Can attack any ship to protect Police, Military, or Corporate ships.

• Like I said earlier, I do believe the change to be pretty innocent, but also futureproof to allow us to do more interesting things with bounty hunters. As for the Freelancer ID line, they are more free to do questionable things, purely because guilds such as Aegis and BHG are by their very definition lawful. It would look a bit strange for a BHG to be hired by an Outcast to terrorise 46th| snubs, but that I'd need to check if it would break the ID rules or not.
  

Unless I am hired by a quasi-lawful ID to protect him from FL ID'd attack ships? Though that is a very niche case, and may count them as targets

• So for this I would say the same thing as to Curator, an Escort contract (I assume the protection you talk about is in this case of an escort) would absolutely allow you to attack anyone that tries to attack/pirate the Kitkat escort from Kai that you are protecting.
  

sorry I am just trying to figure out if there is a loophole this somehow opens up. I hope there isn't one, because I'd hate to get my hands tied by even more red tape.

• There's absolutely no need to apologise for asking questions. If there are any loopholes because of this that we haven't thought of, I'd like to count on you to flag them to us (you can even just DM me somewhere) and we will take this back to the drawing board and figure out how to fix it asap.
  

I suppose part of this also places more of an onus on the contract provider, they could offer broad categorization for the contract's targets rather than specific individuals. IE, a courier contract that stipulates that anyone trying to intercept you may be destroyed to protect the cargo, rendering anything crossing your path a potential target as per ID engagement lines.

• As this would fall under an escort contract, technically yes, you're absolutely right. Anyone that crosses the escort's path could be a potential thread if the engage your escort.
  

I hope this helped explain things a bit better from our perspective and I didn't just confuse people even more.