Organised crime in Sirius has become a serious problem for both trade and house militaries alike. A syndicate of very wealthy traders eventualy grew tired of being pirated and hassled by these organised unlawufs and decide to take matters into their own hands. Bounty Hunters are a resourse that could be tapped to fight this threat but by nature bounty hunters tend to be disorganised lawful rogues in it for the money that would not take to leadership. Realising this, the wealthy traders decided to attempt to organise these rogue bountyhunters the only way they knew possible, by offering bounties on all major organised criminals.
He would only pay acreditted bounty hunters that he knew he could trust. Becoming acreditted is a very simple task, just place the BH tag in front of your name for all to see and participate in the collection of a bounty with someone who has collected before. For example if Bounty Hunter Jonathan wanted to get paid by this trade syndicate for the bounties on organised criminals, he would need advertise his name as BH - Jonathan for all to see and assist another BH tagged Bounty Hunter in a kill.
To be the primary collector of bounties of any class ship they would also have to fly one of the following bountyhunter ships, have the BH - tag and post a before and after picture in the bounty thread:
If you fly one of the following ships you may only personally collect a bounty on a cruiser class ship or higher but may be paid for the assist in any other class ships. You must also have the BH - tag.
Only after collecting a certain number of bounties will you be permitted to tag a Bounty Hunter Battleship and use it to assist in the collection of any bounties. It will be a lot.
The following weapons are acceptable for all bountyhunters to collect on a bounty.
Fighters:
All civilain weapons
All bounty hunter Weapons
All Codenames weapons
All missiles
All mines
Mini Razor
Supernova
Nova
All torpedos except nomad
Capital ship class:
All civilian missile and regular turrets
All house military Missiles and Turrets
Cerberus
Infernos
Razors
Mortars
Solaris
A typical bounty will be 5 mil for a faction kill to be paid to the one supplying the proof of kill as well as 1 mil for each of the other tagged BH - Bounty Hunters partied with you at the time of the kill. It will be the responsibility of the one posting the picture to disburse the additional assist funds to his party members. Battleship or faction leaders will be worth 20 mil for the kill, assists will be worth 1 mil each. Only one bounty each week will be paid for each criminal, ie. [OPG] Evilguy can only be collected on once per week.
Factions to be hunted:
OPG
Nova-PG
Bs
ROS
101st
Benitez family
LH
GC
BD
BLS
TBH
HF
LR
NLH
UOG
RHA
No bounties will be paid for ships of any other factions. Unlawfuls beware......
Of course all who are tagged BH - are welcome to take on lawful freelance work and anyone may pay the Bounty Office to request our services.
// I have talked with friends about setting this up. This seems to me to be the most BHish way i could imagine to make a faction plus gives its members more of a reason to do what it is bounty huters do - Hunt. Eventually we may make omega-15 our home.
If you think it is a good or bad idea please let me know. Flames are welcome as well as any indication that bountyhunters would want to participate.
It is a good concept but i dont know if there should be a bounty hunter faction. a bounty hunters job is to find the bountys and go off on his/her own. not to really be accompanied by other bounty hunters. if they wish to work together the will but i wouldnt try to organize them into a collective.
however this is just one persons opinion of what a bounty hunter should RP as. other players may have a different opinion. we see what happens, best of luck to ya mate.
Let's see... generally, people are of the opinion that the ships above Gunship-class are for use in the Bounty Hunters' war against the Order, not for actual day-to-day bounty hunting, as they're too expensive to maintain for such comparatively trivial work. I'm inclined to agree. Remember that in addition to the pilot, they also have a crew to pay, and considerably more complex weapon systems and other such things.
I'd prefer more limitations on Codename weaponry, but the refusal to allow Nomad guns is good to see.
It appears that you're only targeting player factions, not independents associated with the NPC factions. Is that the case, or are you also going to target, for example, independent Corsairs?
As for shadowjman: There's a Bounty Hunters Guild in Freelancer, even without the Discovery mod. I would think, therefore, that they're considerably more organized than you seem to think...
Yeah, no bounties will be paid on independents. Maybe if an independet assists an organization then he will earn a seperate bounty.
I agree with you on the Cap ships should not be used to solo hunt, but sometimes they are necessary when the target calls in his friends or the target is flying a cap ship. That is why i only realy want them to participate as assistance to fighters or to fight off other cap ships. Also remember that most of the pirates are centered in very tough zones like the omegas and omicrons where good ships might be necessary for the fight.
The idea was not realy to create a faction, but to make it easier for BHers to find others to go hunt in groups with. Most of the organised pirates do not fly solo.
I personally don't like this idea as a faction, but that's because of my (somewhat strong) opinions about the Bounty Hunters Guild.
In my opinion, the Bounty Hunters Guild is a loosely organised group. Men and women sign up, they get a ship (from a loan), then they hunt the Sirius bounty networks looking for jobs. The organisation is primarily based on piloting and tactical effectiveness. Dumb bounty hunters don't get far.
The Bounty Hunters Guild may have a NPC faction, but that is just to represent the NPCs in game. They fly similar ships with similar weapons, because (I suspect) they are rented/loaned to them when they sign up.
Say it's like joining a Union. You sign up to the Union, you become a member with whatever benefits it gives you, you get a job or continue your current one. You may be a Union member, but you aren't linked to your fellow comrades by rank. While there are a few leaders, representatives (Guildmasters and other ranks unknown to us), the majority just go by with their daily grind (in this case, looking for bounties/contracts).
When you see two or more Union members working together at the same work place, it isn't because the Union has assigned jobs to the group to work on together, it's because they all have found a contract to work on.
While the Union might give you a job, as a member, they don't do this often. You are expected to find your own contracts, to make your own money.
They don't get given a large list of targets (IE the factions noted) and go hunt them over and over again. They look for appropriate bounties, depending on their skill and the credits offered.
An example, using NPCs as the basis (Outcasts being better than low level bounty hunters):
A rookie who accepts an Outcast bounty won't be alive for much longer...
Another thing about Bounty Hunters, from what I know from Vanilla and Discovery's background details (rumours, infocards etc), they generally don't form groups. A hunter may fly with his/her friends and collegues, but they don't form factions and stuff. They are out for money, not for power or anything.
About the "Trade Syndicate", the closest faction to this would be Interspace Commerce. As the owners of tradelanes throughout Sirius, they constantly place bounties on many unlawful ships and pilots (backed by infocards, if you want to know). IC is the largest bounty contractor in Sirius, from the information I've found.
Weapon and ship restrictions, those are fine. Except the battleships and cruisers, in my opinion, these are Bounty Hunter Core only. Out of the Hunter-section's jurisdiction.
A note about the Bounties, I don't particulary like the fact that every member of said factions can be hunted and killed for no apparent reason. Sure, they may be unlawfuls, but have they actually caused the Trade Syndicate trouble? Why would the Syndicate post bounties on random pirates? If its about eliminating pirates, that will never happen. Society will always have their "unlawfuls", and there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions of unlawfuls in Sirius. While the Bounty Hunters Guild is large, it is not going to take them all out.
Another problem, what is the recruiting process like? One could just put a BH- in front of their name, and pvp all these pirates with little or none roleplay basis. Keep that kind of behaviour in mind.
The way I'd handle this, I would not make this into a faction. Scrap the whole BH- naming part, and just have the group of Trade Syndicate members organised somehow.
Create a Bounty Board in the Employeement Office, where your Syndicate members can post bounties on players (factionised and independent), with a decent reason (not "they are unlawful). Post around 5 million or whatever sum you agree on for smaller ships, more for gunboats. Cruisers and capital ships would be worth a lot more.
Characters wanting to apply for the reward must provide a screenshot of the Kill, a screenshot of their Weapons and their ID.
**These ships may only take bounties against Cruiser or above class ships**
Allowed Capital Ships:
Bounty Hunter Destroyer
Bounty Hunter Battlecruiser
Bounty Hunter Battleship
Allowed Fighter/Bomber Weapons:
All Civilian weapons
All Bounty Hunter Weapons
All Codenames Codenames are considered universal currently, there is no admin-applied resource for determining the faction of a particular codename, otherwise everyone would be a bounty hunter (as they would appear to have the majority of them, according to wrecks).
All Fighter-Missiles
All Mines
Mini Razor
Supernova
Nova Torpedo Launcher
Sunslayer Torpedo Launcher
Starkiller Torpedo Launcher
Allowed Gunboat, Cruiser and Battleship Weapons:
All Civilian Missile and Basic Turrets (civilian)
All House Military Missiles and Turrets
Zoner Turrets
GMG Turrets
IMG Turrets
Cerberus Turrets (all)
Capital Inferno (all)
Razors (all)
Mortars (all)
If any of these guidelines are violated, the bounty is not awarded. Bad luck.
Yeah i thought about doing that too fitzgerald with just the bounty board but then i would be paying bounties to just about anyone and everyone, i am not that rich. The idea is not to create a faction per se, but to give out licenses, the BH - tag which then gives them the right to hunt the unlawful clans to collect the bounties. This way not every bounty hunter, merc, and his brother are out hunting guild tagged people.
It would also let the pirates know when a BH - tagged person enters their system or if many do that the hunt is on. If a pirate does not want to participate in this they could see the BH - tagged person and simply decide not to engage and fly the other way. The only real reason to carry the tag is to be able to collect on the bounties and find others interested in doing the same type of work. I tried to place some rules down to prevent non bounty hunter ships from collecting on them and to prevent solo or multi-cap ships from griefing players.
I agree with everything you said in your post about BHers being loner rogues in it for the money. Now they have something they can constantly hunt and have the ability to find other like minded hunters to group with to go after the bigger game. The bounty for the assist is along the lines of each member is still realy only in it for himself.
The county listings and collections will be located in the empoyment office. That is a good idea.
The only reason i kept the higher class cappies on the list is because if people do go into the omegas to hunt say opg, then cap ships seem to come out of everywhere to assist them. Hunting Faction members is not easy by any means. To even this out, the bhers should be able to do the same on occasion. I tried to prevent loner BCers chasing fighters and bombers as you can see.
Quote:Another problem, what is the recruiting process like? One could just put a BH- in front of their name, and pvp all these pirates with little or none roleplay basis. Keep that kind of behaviour in mind.
This is a good point.
Right now i do not plan on being exclusive. This is somewhat like an open bounty with lots of rules, one being the tag. Anyone that wants to participate must simply get the tag and go out and hunt. That seems very bounty hunterish to me. Bounty hunters by nature would not go through a rigorous recruitment process or have ranks and a hierarchy. If the numbers swell and pirates start to feel outnumbered then licenses would be put on hold or funds to be paid out would start becoming more limitted. Not sure if that would realy happen though. On the bounty board i will always list the available funds for bounties. If I run out of money, well then no more bounties.
I was also thinking that in order to actually be paid the first time they would have to take a small quiz on the official Discovery rules. That would just be a formality.
How do the outcasts RP when they encounter Corsairs. I would try to promote the same type of encounter. Before i would attack someone i would say "[OPG] Evilguy you have been marked for termination" or something like that and see where it goes from there. The main idea behind the BH - tag was to let the pirates know that here comes a bountyhunter to try to take you out. If you find that someone is abusing this or you do not like the way they go about the hunt, their license can always be revoked.
I didn't expect everyone to like the idea. I accept all criticism and will try to work with the community to make this work if there is enough support and players would participate. BTW all the work you put into that post is quite impressive. You want to participate?