mercenaries are soldiers for hire, bounty hunters are professional headhunters. - so, ... mercs are more the military type that you hire to reinforce your side in a battle, bounty hunters are more the civilian / policing type. - you don t hire BHGs to fight your war.
in order to RP a BHG properly, it requires an enviroment to RP it. when all houses start politics to ban BHGs or to not pay anything anymore, there will be no more BHG anymore. in terms of usefulness.
the NPCs rely on the BHG, aswell as they dislike them. the playerfactions dislike BHGs for the most part. - hard to integrate them into discovery properly. - we got too many factions that claim to act autonomous and without the need of any help. - thats when you get the BHGs acting like police / shooting pirates without bounty, cause they have nothing to do... no bounties, no bounty hunters. end of the faction.