Ok, newbro here, been playing for about 3 weeks. The other day, I was running a L2 hisec rat site in my new Atron fit, and just when I started getting pummeled pretty good, someone in a Vexor warps in and starts taking care of business. Things started getting a bit confusing at this point, I think there was a third ship that came and went, and suddenly a bunch of wrecks turned blue, which I learned means that they were abandoned so someone else can loot/salvage them.
Anyways, at this point I warp to the nearest station in order to fit a salvager on my ship, and then return and deploy my MTU. The Vexor is still there at this point, also busy salvaging, using a tractor beam and salvage drones. I’m just sitting there next to my MTU and salvaging anything that it pulls in, which is mostly white (i.e. my own) wrecks. Suddenly, I notice the Vexor coming closer and starting to salvage MY wrecks.
I’m a little peeved because I did ask for their help in the first place (I ran a similar site in my ship earlier and survived it just fine, just took me a little bit longer flying a few extra large circles to let my shield recharge and my armor repair), but now they are literally going after MY wrecks! So I right click on the vessel and show info on the pilot, notice they already have a sizeable bounty on their head, but I decide to add another million ISK.
At this point, things started going very fast, and I’m still trying to make sense of it. Within seconds, a warning from CONCORD appears on the screen, saying that criminals will not be tolerated in this system, and two or three police vessels show up and start to engage the Vexor. The warning showing up for ME, however, had me scared that I might have been flagged (despite my safety being set to green the entire time), so I try warping out to the nearest stargate. It works, I jump, and autopilot back to my home station to take a breather and figure out what just happened.
As soon as I arrive, I get a notification that the pilot of the Vexor has added me as a contact with terrible standing. He also left a message stating that when my account is 30 days old, he will be placing a bounty on me. So I open a chat with him (which I probably should have done PRIOR to placing that bounty), and try to figure things out. Turns out HE abandoned those wrecks in order to let me salvage them, but when he saw me warp out, he didn’t want to waste them and started salvaging himself. No word however on why he started salvaging MY wrecks after I had come back for them. Anyhow, next thing he sends me a good chunk of ISK and tells me to get a proper ship, but that he’ll still put a bounty on me as soon as my toon reaches 30 days.
So, at first I felt like a proper asshole here for misreading the other guy and punishing him for trying to do me a favor, but then I started thinking… CONCORD doesn’t respond to bounties, do they? I thought those are for other players only. And according to the other guy, they only really work in lowsec or nullsec. He already HAD a bounty on him when he entered this system, and he didn’t get attacked then, so he must have done something else to get CONCORD on his tail, right? Like… shooting one of my wrecks? Which means, he must have had safety off. In which case, it wasn’t my fault at all that he got destroyed by them.
Am I reading this situation correctly? Am I the asshole here or is he, or perhaps the both of us? What, apart from trying to hail him as soon as I saw him salvage my wrecks, could I have done better to avoid this misunderstanding?
Thanks for your input and fly safe! o7