Ok, well, I just got informed that the bounty system is offline due to exploits, not cos its bugged. And heres my suggestion to make it less exploitable.

Simply reset the bounty count to 0 when claimed. The current system remembers what your last bounty was, and adds the amount from your last bounty, enabling people like me to grind away o, and end up with bounties in excess of 10 million credits, if the system reset it to 0 every claim, it would be almost impossible for me to get a bounty that high. (infact, bounties in the 500k region would be rare :P)

Couple this with making NPC tradebots count towards a bounty, and I think we have a more balanced system :)

Aye I agree, reset it to 0 or to a very low amount after its claimed. I mean if there is a reward on someone's head and they are caught, then escape, it doesnt automagically add the past reward to the new amount. And I think its cool if the NPCs add to it, makes a lot of sense, and makes it much more realistic. So lets do this so we can have bounties back, no use having bounty hunters if we dont have bounties. :-)

Well, bounties were intended to be a negative thing. Something to cause people to have to look over their shoulder, and have some threat of recourse for their actions. But it ended up more being a moneymaking opportunity. One short term idea I had was to add NPC bounty hunters, and remove PC bountyhunters until we can adjust the system.

I'd love to see NPC bounty hunters, in addition to PCs. Once the system is fixed, why not keep the NPC hunters, if they work out alright?

haha, a bounty hunting strike force that follows you EVERYWHERE. Sweet!

That would be kinda neat!

That would be neat. So if a bounty hunters sees you he'll persue you until he is killed or you elude him? Cool.

[APPROVED]

I don't know about a bounty hunting strike force, but bounty hunting NPC's in general would be cool

Yeah that would be kinda neat...hehe

make sure the bounty hunters carry normal equipment (instead of law neuts) or we'll have the same problem with bountys beomg more of an opertunity than a burdin.

but inc, if you remove the bounty system (as it currently is, where players can claim them) then what will become of career bounty hunters?

I say to stop bounty farming, just make sure that the person who is collected has to pay the piper... if they have to front the cash, then it won't do any good for them to collect it.

Sorry Cunjo, that makes no sense at all, why in hell would I pay for my own punishment? I've already died for it... plus, I dont have 10 mill to pay :P

[edit]
But after thinking about it, its easier to trade 10 mill than it is to bounty grind for 14 months (yes, thats how long it took to get my bounties that high) so if bounty farming is getting turned off, can we have all the other little exploits turned off too? Like Mining :P

>why in hell would I pay for my own punishment? I've already died for it... plus, I
>dont have 10 mill to pay :P

because it's punishment, not a prize. and there is no reason you can't have a debt (negative monies) that has to be payed down before you can purchass anything with a nonzero cost. sure it would suck to be in that situation, but that would be an incentive to not rack up a huge bounty.

and besides it does make sence in a way.
"you are under arrest, your ship and it's contents will be auctioned and the proceeds applied to the cost of your deffence."

You could look upon it as a release fee (can't recall the normal legal term for it).

In any case, the higher your notority is the higher the fee is going to be. Ergo at start it can be 10% of the bounty while later 'ergo comitting more offenses) it can become a higher percentage of the total bounty.

Meaning, you rack up a bounty of 200k and then get killed, because it was your first offense you got to pay a 20k fine to get out 'jail'. However even after you got free out of jail, you start acting in the same fashion and are able to rake up a 300k bounty before you get caught again. But seeing as it wasn't your first offense anymore the fine to get out of 'jail' is not 10% anymore but 15% (45k). If you keep up the act the fine will slowly (or not so slowly) rake up towards the point of 100%. On top of that if you don't commit any of those offenses that would earn you a bounty otherwise the fine will degrade back after a certain time to the basevalue modded with your notoritylevel.

ergo:

notority0 = 10%
notority1 = 15
notority2 = 20
notority3 = 25
notority4 = 30
...
notority14 = 80
notority15 = 85
notority16 = 90
notority17 = 95
notority18 = 100%

then the minimum degradeable finelevel per notoritylevel would become

= 10% + notority * (1.04%)^(notority) rounded down till either x.0% or x.5%

(or at level 1 11% in stead of the 15%)

And you would be able to let your fine drop down with 2% every week (out of game) so level 1 notority would be at its minimum attainable finelevel after 2 weeks of acting according to rules although this amount is still open to changes and suggestions from the criminals to make it more attainable and not impossible.

This would add another statistic for criminals to acquire, and for criminalhunters to see on their killsheets. Numbers are up still open to discussion though. And there will probbly be also quests that would drop your notoritylevel by an amount for doing a certain fact or so. ergo an assasinmission for itanis would drop your notorityrating with the itani but naturally your bounty with the opposition would go up etc... naturally this will only be really usefull after some of the adjustments to factionstanding and exclusivity etc...

Although might be even better to make the increase dynamical as well, meaning if you got jailed with a bounty on you and already have a certain notoritylevel, it might be better to in stea dof immedialtely set it at an equivalent notoritylevelrating to add the reduction and the minimum in as well.

ergo:

estimated fine will become: previous actual finelevel + 5% - 2% for each passed week outside of the game without any caught bounties.

then if (estimated fine <= minimum degradeable finelevel for notoritylevel x) -> actual fine == minimum degradeable finelevel

if not(estimated fine <= minimum degradeable finelevel for notoritylevel x) -> actual fine == estimated fine

Sounds like a good Idea Rene, I like it!

Actually rene, that does make sense. For a change I cant argue with something you posted, heh :D

I would like to also suggest a system for allowing players to place bounties on other players. It would cool to be able to file a bounty, pay the ammount of the bounty, and whoever gets it collects the money. Even better it would be neat to be able to add special circumstances to it, such as you have to kill him X number of times to collect.

Oh lord, tumblemonster with his ~1 billion credits. I can see a year's worth of 1 million bounties on LeberMac's head, and it wouldn't even put a serious dent in tumble's fortune.

The system would be something like this:

>/msg tumblemonster bounties

WELCOME TO TUMBLEMONSTER'S BOUNTY HEAVEN!

Press 1 for Itani
Press 2 for UIT
Press 3 for Serco

> 1

Excellent choice! Today we have a special on the head of LeberMac, Yeees, LeberMac! For no other reason than it pleases tumblemonster to see LeberMac dance! To accept this bounty, press 1. To go onto the next bounty, press 2.

> 1

Congratulations! You've chosen to hunt down LeberMac, who was last seen in the Makchuga in Corvus Prime, Odia M-14. Good luck hunting! For an extra bonus, be sure to bring back his ultra-charge battery once you've killed him.

lol.

As an additional feature, perhaps re-home the killed character at the national capital of the bounty hunter as a 'jailed' feature and to cause additional disruption to the nefarious criminal. :)

Station selection would have to trickle down through nation and faction to avoid homing a character at KOS location, of course.

Or perhaps create a 'prison station' somewhere specially for the purpose.