*moved the below from an edit in my previous post to a new post here.
Okay turns out Im not done yet.
Consider if the changes you want to see were made:
1. Average payout per kill going from 1.5m to 6-10m.
2. More relaxed signup requirements
Problems:
1. Why fly my [LN]/LN indie/LSF/whatever ship to shoot people for free, when I can fly my merc ship and get paid? I already know it happens with somebody in [LN] flying a DSE escort ship to claim on their quite generous internal faction bounty board, rather than helping me on their [LN] ship.
2. Assuming the amount of claims per time period stays the same, expenditure goes up by 4-6x. Now, my prediction would be that the amount of claims would actually go up because kills are more lucrative, and there are more people on the bounty board who can claim. Liberty is a very rich target environment, so comparing the Liberty Bounty Board to other boards isn't really fair.
Those two problems themselves bring up some serious issues. Firstly, where do we get the money from to pay? [LN] aren't traders, and I can't see the corporate factions footing the bill because it would be pretty expensive as well as require somebody to maintain a set of accounts. Base taxation legislation helps, but it wont be able to fill that gap. Secondly, in addition to paying generous bounties which would themselves be taxing on the financial resources these factions have in the long term, in order to stop members of lawful combat factions ([LN], =LSF=, LPI- or whatever their tag is), we'd also have to pay an internal wage. I once did wage calculations based on an hourly rate. At the time I did this, an [LN] member somehow managed to have 21 days of activity in a month - and believe me he wasn't idling. For a faction that, while I was in its HC, maintained an activity rate of 25-40 days per month, even a small rate of pay of, say, 100k/hour, results in a frankly eyewatering monthly wage bill.
There's lots of problems to solve, caused mostly by conditions unique to Liberty - that it's the centre of activity. In many ways, that's a good thing despite the sometimes questionable quality of interactions. But it is, at best, a mixed blessing.
