Admin Notice: Bounty System Overhaul

[Jose Benitez]

Is the any reason that we cant have an unlawful Bounty Hunter id, and change the entire manner in which bounties are thought of?

It seems to me that the majority of Mercs that are flying around claiming the blanket bounties from Corsairs et al are nothing more than unlawful Bounty Hunters?

Looking at the info cards seems to suggest that there is not a tremendous amount of difference between the 2 ids either.

Bounty Hunters can do the following ;-

1. Can fulfil lawful bounty contracts
2. Can trade and escort traders
3. Can demand cargo and credits from ships carrying contraband and destroy them if the refuse to comply
4. Cannot ally with any unlawfuls
5. Cannot participate in any unlawful actions
6. Cannot use and transports with more than 4300 cargo
7. Allowed ships ;- Fighters, Freighters, Transports, Gunboats, Prison liners.

Mercs on the other hand can do the following ;-

1 Can trade and escort traders
2 Can fulfil lawful and unlawful bounty contracts
3 Cannot pirate, but can provide security services for pirates who are pirating if paid to do so. Mercenaries can only fire on traders or smugglers in self defence or if the trader of smuggler fires on or is bountied by the mercenaries employer.
4 Cannot use any transports with more than 3800 cargo
5 Allowed ships ;- Fighters, Freighters, Transports, Gunboats


Looking at the similarities you have to start to wonder why there are 2 ids at all based on the manner in which most Merc ids seem to be used at the moment (by many players).

Items 1 and 2 are effectively the same difference for both.

Items 3 for both of them is very similar. For instance if a BH comes across an cardamine smuggler its nice and easy. Cardamine is considered unlawful, and as such the BH is well within his rights (according to the info card) to do something about it.

In the case of a Merc it has now become normal for Mercs to apply to unlawful factions for permission to access their bounty boards. Once they have been granted this access then they are effectively employed by the Bounty Board owner (or so it seems to me).

In the case of the Corsairs there is a list included in the Corsair laws of Contraband commodities. Based on this list, what is to stop the Corsair associated Merc from stopping traders carrying any of the items listed as contraband and behaving in exactly the same way as the Bounty Hunter?

Item 4 for the BH is fairly self explanatory, and in truth the same applies to a Merc that has been accepted and granted access to an unlawfuls bounty board. Any Merc found to be shooting at Corsairs having been accepted onto their bounty board will find themselves in trouble with the Corsairs. The only difference with this is that the Merc is expected to be honest and not go shoot at his employers, and it is therefore not a server rule.

Item 5 for the BH is something that I have had a bit of an issue with for a long time. It has everything to do with the definition of unlawful. Whilst I accept that from a game mechanics perspective the way it is currently considered works, it still irritates me to think that a bounty can be completed in a lawful houses space where the person to whom the bounty is applicable is not actually a criminal. The local law enforcement agencies tend (with but few exceptions) to sit around and let what is effectively little more than a licensed civilian, destroy the ship of a law abiding citizen (in that locality). Anyhow, that it what it is, and not the real point of this topic or reply.

So the BH cant participate in unlawful activity. Mercs can participate in unlawful activity if they are employed by unlawfuls.

Since, I personally have never seen either a Merc or a BH transport I am not sure how relevant item 6 for the BH and item 4 for the Mercs is, and in terms of these discussions Id say it is not relevant at all.

Finally, the ship types are pretty much the same difference.

So if we simply created an Unlawful Bounty Hunter id they would effectively have all of the same abilities etc as a lawful one but simply from a different perspective. Same set of rules applies to both groups, but with different affiliations.

So those are my arguments for having a new id for Unlawful Bounty Hunters since it is my view that there is not really a tremendous amount of difference in terms of how the ids are actually used (although I accept that the Merc id may have been created with a different idea in mind).

However, I have now got another issue. What to do with Mercs? Big houses/corporations would be likely to employ Mercs to augment and reinforce their standing armies.

I am now about to contradict some of the things I have stated above. But since this is meant to be an open discussion I might as well throw it all out there and let you guys think about the solution.

My issue concerns the nature of the Blanket Bounties as opposed to Individual Bounties that relate to a single or at the most a small group of individuals.

The blanket bounties tend to be offered by Houses/factions, both lawful and unlawful, and they tend to be applicable to that groups enemies.

To my mind the blanket bounties are much more applicable to Mercs than to Bounty Hunters. It seems perfectly logical that Mercs that are employed by a House/faction would be out there killing that groups enemies, whilst Bounty Hunters, by their nature, would be chasing people that have been declared as criminals by those offering the bounty.

Because of this differential Id be inclined to stop Bounty Hunters completing blanket bounties, and only allow Mercs to do them. But Id prevent Mercs from taking the Individual Bounties that might be offered.

This does however rather reduce the number of things that Bounty Hunters have to do, since they currently spend a lot of their time completing blanket bounties.

Some of what Ive outlined would also be likely to resolve some of the issues relating to having a requirement to make your target red on your scanner, since it will mean that the IFF can be more sensibly manipulated accordingly depending on whom it is that you are affiliated with.

Anyhow. Those are my thoughts I know that they are not the complete solution, but do feel that they at least address some of the issues feel free to contradict or otherwise.