Haha. One more of ‘these’ ideas!
How is my idea different?
Hmm, I go away from the bounty hunting as a 1v1 system and transform it into a profession.
Abstract for the impatient: You pay for the license to legally hunt any number of wanted pilots during a limited time and get a defined payout depending on your license quality per kill. This scenario involves risk, spreads fear, asks for and then rewards commitment. Sure, there are some EVE-specific details - making things a bit complicated.
The bounty system No 4711 prevents these types of abuse:
- bounty placement for a quick legal kill without repercussions
- profitable bounty payout from self to alts
- bounty-hunting fleet stampedes clear-cutting New Eden
- player mobbing with bounties
That’s how it can work:
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Any player can place a bounty on any other player not more often than once per month. The minimum bounty is 10 Mil ISK and it can be as high as the budget allows in increments of 10 Mil ISK. Any new bounty becomes visible and goes into effect 24 hours after placement.
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Optional: A tax is added to / a discount is subtracted from the bounty payment depending on the security standing of the target.
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Having placed a bounty changes nothing else for the targeted player.
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Any Omega player can activate a bounty hunting mission by paying a certain amount of license fee at a CONCORD bounty office. Similar to an agent mission, this authorises the pilot to become a licensed bounty hunter on behalf of CONCORD … yes, with the license to hunt and with the license to get bounty payouts. How much it should cost and for how long this authorisation should be valid is explained a bit later.
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A rule: You cant activate another bounty license while you have already one active, nor can you upgrade, downgrade, extend or shorten its runtime.
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An optional but strongly recommended limit: You cant activate the license while you are member of a fleet and - vice-versa - while you are authorised for bounty hunting you cant join any fleet.
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If a bounty wearing player is killed by any non-licensed player(s), no bounty is paid to the killer. All usual combat consequences apply as if there was no bounty on the target.
The hunting license now works as follows:
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The licensed hunter will receive a bounty payout for a bounty-kill. There is no specific activation necessary. Shuttles, Corvettes and Pods, while maybe legal to shoot at, do not count as bounty-kill. If multiple pilots are appearing at the victims killmail, a bounty-kill is achieved if the licensed hunter has applied the most damage (a tie is in favor of the hunter).
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The usual CONCORD combat interventions stay intact in Highsec! However, a bounty higher 100 Mil ISK on the victim will prevent CONCORD and gate-gun repercussions against any licensed hunter combating this victim. New Eden is a civilised sector of the Galaxy, we do not provide self-justice for peanuts! All other security measures and engagement rules remain unchanged.
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Independent from bounty payout, if at least one licensed hunter was involved in a kill, the victim is no longer a legal bounty-target until the end of license runtime for each of the hunters appearing on this killmail. In other words: all involved licensed hunters are now blind for the remaining bounty of the victim.
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It is a matter of style if the bounty is paid immediately or via a voucher (a personalised physical item) to be redeemed at a CONCORD office.
So far the bounty system. Now to the details that avoid financial abuse.
There are three variables for how to adjust the bounty hunting procedure: license cost, license duration and payout.
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License cost: You may chose between bronze, silver, gold and platinum license with costs of 50, 150, 400 and 1200 Mil ISK, respectively.
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License duration is 48 hours for bronze and silver, either 48 or 72 hours for gold, and any time of hunters choice between 48 and 168 hours for platinum.
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The maximum payout decreases for the hunter with each subsequent appearance at any bounty-kill (being not the top damage pilot counts as well) during license runtime: it is 40% for the first, 30% for the second and any further kill pays 25% of the hunters license cost. However, the payout is never higher than the total available bounty of the target.
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The loot always belongs to the pilot with max-damage.
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The bounty of the target is always reduced by 50% of the license costs of the bounty hunter receiving a payout.
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If the remaining bounty on the target would be less than 5 Mil ISK, all is paid out instead.
Do away with the ‘kill right’ system, place a bounty on the killer instead! Either with value of the destroyed ship or with 10 Mil ISK, whatever is more.
Another optional add-on: Whenever a licensed hunter gets a payment cheque his/her security status is increased.
Funny little-things:
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With every suspect timer, CONCORD places 5 Mil ISK bounty at the pilot and with every criminal timer 20 Mil ISK bounty are added.
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Active silver, gold or platinum license provides the option to rent a CONCORD ship hull (Pacifier, Enforcer, Marshal) with a proper collateral deposit and 90% refund if the repacked ship is brought back within 14 days.
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Active gold and platinum bounty licenses prevents faction police aggression against a hunter.
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Locator Agents provide info about hunting license status of a searched pilot in addition to everything else they provide.
And now have fun as bounty hunter!