Quote:6.15 Owners of Bounty Hunter/Mercenary/Freelancer IDs have a right to attack:
- Pirates
- Traders ships carrying smuggled goods and refusing to drop them
- (not for FL ID) Lawful and unlawful players with a bounty on their heads
There appears to be an ambiguity in this rule concerning the bounty requirement (which works in favour of the Guild Core). While it mentions that a bounty is required before a bounty hunter/mercenary can engage another player, it does not specify that the bounty has to be collected. So simply, a mercenary can engage a multitude of targets with the flimsy excuse of "you've got a bounty on your head". One look at the employment office surprised me. The following factions can be engaged at will by mercenaries with a fighter (also bomber and gunboat for the majority of them):
Xenos, Lane Hackers, Liberty Rogues, Outcasts, Liberty Navy, Liberty Security Force, Bretonian Armed Forces, Bretonian Police Authority, Mollies, Gaians, Corsairs, Farmers Alliance, Hogosha, Golden Crysanthemums, Blood Dragons, Kusari Naval Forces, Kusari State Police, Kishiro/Samura transports, Red Hessian, Bundschuh, Landwirtrechtbewegung, Unioner, Wilde, Rheinland Military, Rheinland Federal Police, the IMG, the Order, the Bounty Hunters Guild, Nomads and other special factions such as the 522d, the Phantoms and Colonials. Not to mention the vast numbers of generic pirates, mercenaries and freelancers bountied by various parties.
Wow, that was a mouthful. Screw getting a battlecruiser, if I want to pvp, all I need is a merc ID, and a Taiidan bomber with codes or a Raven's Talon with missiles. Plus, I'll get REWARDED by my pvp actions with tons of credits!
So, are the Guild Core allowed to satisfy both the bounty and roleplay requirements, by attacking bountied Order, Corsairs, Red Hessians, Outcasts and Nomads, and not collecting the credit payment? It doesn't make sense for them to worry about collecting credits from wrecking pirates - the Core is above the petty bounty hunting of the rest of the Guild.
-edited again-
Sure, fire away.
I noticed about 3 minutes after that bounty requirement went up from the ADMIN council, several of those blanket bounties went up as well, leading me to believe that most BHG who visit the forums know that they can pretty much go about business as usual blowing up the malcontents of Sirius without fear of retribution.
If you don't want to collect the bounty, don't. Yes, that pretty much negates the whole "Bounty" hunter thing...
So now we've come to the question: Does a bounty hunter, after making any kill whatsoever, have to post on the forum, and specifically in the correct thread, that "I killed so-n-so" immediately after making said kill? If so, what's the time limit?
Forum trolling peaks out as those "wrongfully killed" patrol the employment office seeking a viable sanction report opportunity. I already get the dreaded white-page peak users message all too often.
$.02
Yeah, sometimes I don't really have time to host images and make a post after I get a kill... sometimes, it takes me a week or so to get around to it.
This seems ridiculously hard to enforce, to me.
Personally, the rule is in place to deter random BHG going around and killing people.
In addition, most blanket bounties are only valid within house systems, meaning that BHG can no longer go to Gamma, planetcamp Crete, and expect to be safe from sanction under the blanket bounties in place.
The rule works, it does not really bother me, as it does not make sense for Bounty Hunters to be risking their lives and vessels to go around killing people for little or no profit.
The rule doesn't perform regarding mercenaries, as they can go out anywhere, kill pretty much anyone, and post screenshots to get cash. That's better than before, as they didn't get paid for their pvp back then...
The blanket bounties claimable by Bounty Hunters mostly occur in house systems, in fighters, bombers and gunboats. That is fine, but it still allows bounty hunters to engage any pirate (all of them are bountied) at will, in a smaller ship (just like before): was the bounty requirement brought upon to combat capwhores or pvpwhores? Personally, the only difference between a bounty hunter pvp whore in a fighter and a battlecruiser is that the fighter can be killed by pirate fighters.
Edit: bounty hunters can indeed camp Gamma, as there is one blanket bounty upon them. There used to be two more, but they stopped for funding/other reasons. The amount of corsairs dying in gamma by bounty hunters probably increased during the time of these two blanket bounties.
I can't wait for 4.85.
We claim for every bounty. I think it's pretty poor form not to. Two of us trawl the message dump once a week or so and post the claims. It's work, but not that difficult once you get used to it. Fiddle around with photoshop and it actually becomes kind of fun. It probably helps that we don't actually get that many kills.
A certain BHG faction seemed to never claim a single bounty, as far as I know.
Good point about the mercs, though. PvP whores the lot of 'em.... (joke)
Quote:Edit: bounty hunters can indeed camp Gamma, as there is one blanket bounty upon them. There used to be two more, but they stopped for funding/other reasons. The amount of corsairs dying in gamma by bounty hunters probably increased during the time of these two blanket bounties.
In my opinion, universal blanket bounties really should not exist.
The idea is for Mercenaries and BHG to supplement lawful forces in times of need. Why would lawfuls pay for kills when the enemy is no where near being a threat to assailing their homes?
Now, if a mercenary expects to work for the Outcasts or Corsairs, and claim bounties on the other... they had better know that they more or less have condemned themselves working for one side of Sirius completely. BHG working for unlawfuls...forget it. If I see that, I'm sanction reporting it for blatant stupidity.
For one, no house will accept you, as you helped unlawfuls, and half the unlawfuls in Sirius will hate you for helping their enemies.
Instead of bounties, Mercs should have to operate on a contract system, and be unable to take bounties. For instance, you take a contract from the Liberty Navy, and get paid per kill of a particular enemy, or enemies, in a fixed area. That is what most mercenaries get paid for today. This
definitely is not how real mercenary corporations operate, but it is close enough for a better system than the current one we have.
EDIT: To clarify the contract system, it means that you only work for one faction for an extended amount of time. Essentially, it is an blanket bounty on, for instance, all enemies of Rheinland(Hessians, Bundschuh, LWB, Corsairs, etc...), for you, and only you, that is restricted to a certain area that you really should not be leaving to do other things. Taking other contracts can void your current one.
Good points Devil Cat...very good.
: It's my opinion that the bounty rule was designed to combat capital shipped BHG to an extent, and to an extent all BHG no matter the ship, who would muster a large force, and camp pirate bases throughout Sirius saying we're keeping the peace.
As Zapp says though, the problem is enforcement. There's lots of them and few willing to take the time to enforce it. There are some, as the Sanctions forum attest to, but at least for me, most of the time i just shake my head, sigh to myself, and go on my merry way. I don't care to spend my free(lancer) time writing sanction reports, it's precious little anyway.
ZoI restrictions are great, for BHG and mercs. the S/D agency does this, and (I don't believe) there aren't problems within that agency (Athenian, could you weigh in here?). But again, enforcement. I did see in the Employment Office that a bounty was denied a hunter for being outside the required area (kill was in Sigmas, bounty was for Omegas) which was good work, and a welcome sight (I think that was Zapp). Mostly though, you see a blue line of text, or a very large explosion and an address for /sendcash. Difficult but not impossible to enforce.
Anyway, I like the system. There doesn't seem to be as big a problem with BHG as there was (unless you're a Corsair or Order), and there's something for BHG to do now with blanket bounties, whether you like them or not.
$.02
Yes, the forum bounties do offer a blanket bounty for just about everyone, but they are regulated in certain ways.
For example, the Outcast Council of Dons bounty. We offer rewards for the deaths of any LN and BHG, but not any of the LPI or LSF. We offer rewards for the death of any Corsairs, but only those of official factions like TBH, Benitez, OPG, or battleships. We offer rewards for the deaths of any KNF, KSP, and Samura, but not Kishiro. We offer rewards for IMG or CR, but not for any transports, only military ships.
And even on top of that, we have several others ways to regulate it. Those being; If your not in an official or honorary faction listed on the bounty, your rewards are half-price. So an indy LH who kills an LN cruiser gets 1.5 million, while someone in the LH player faction gets 3 million.
Another way is by having several policies that must be followed to the letter or no payment is sent out. Such as being hostile to your target. Yes, any merc can attack LN for having a bounty.. But not if they are neutral to the LN. I've had countless Mercs try to collect LN kills and have turned them down because their target is a big glaring white square on their screen.. Not red.
In regards to KNF, KSP, and Samura. One cannot attack one of them unless hostile to all 3.. So you may be hostile to a Samura you just killed, but neutral to KNF.. Invalid bounty claim.
Then we also don't allow anyone to claim bounties with a Battleship unless their opponent is also a battleship.
And then lastly, any BHG/LN kills are only acceptable within certain systems. We don't pay for any BHG/LN kills in Kusari or Rheinland. Everywhere else is okay, but not those two houses.
If everyone added strict regulations to their bounties like such, merc/BHG pvpwhoring would be reduced quite a bit..
' Wrote:....ZoI restrictions are great, for BHG and mercs. the S/D agency does this, and (I don't believe) there aren't problems within that agency (Athenian, could you weigh in here?). ...
We have no problems with a z.o.i. There are places we don't go. Members don't complain. No problems. Now, let me just turn off my blowtorch here. Actually, one member did go outside the zone he was assigned to and he was warned - once again and you're out.
The issue of BHG play impacting on others has been going on here since the first day I started. There's so many possible solutions, and none of them individually is going to work, or might be unpalatable. But
collectively, they just might. I won't spend my time taking screenshots and posting reports, because, frankly, I come here to have fun.
What Zapp (and Sleipnir before him, long ago) realised was that a great deal of both power and responsibility lies in the hands of the people posting the bounties.
//edit Dab too.