Well, maybe give players like that a rude awakening with a surprise visit?
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That was years ago. We’ve all learned to tolerate him, mostly because he was untouchably sitting close enough to the station so he can’t be bumped off and it takes a whole fleet of Tornados combined with a surprise attack to potentially kill him. To anything else he just docks up and undocks again. It’s no fun.
At the later times he sat there combined with a permalogi. The highest damage I ever managed to do onto him was a 13k blast right onto his face using a Tempest … or Maelstrom? … forgot … a passive targeter from 100km away and a MJD to jump onto him without him suspecting anything.
Sadly these guys do not want to interact and forcing it onto them really isn’t a possibility.
I’ve been there. You’re a few years late. : - )
Well according to zKillboard, his last dance was December 2018 in Hek where he got tagged by 6 other players.
Anyway, was just putting some ideas out there, good luck on whatever you decide to do.
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What you could do is start looking around outside the main areas for people who have killrights on them and who while they have them avoid the main pipes and hubs, and you might actually catch something rather nice.
For example I was testing a gank Thrasher fit for gate guns on one of the Racknar scouts on an alt, but I took a risk doing something in a Leshak with the killright active in an out of a way place. I have seen people fly jump freighters and freighters with kill rights.
You obviously know about people like Market Tycoon and their scam kill right setups, and you should be careful of the people who change zero killrights to large amounts, keep just enough in your characters wallet to prevent that.
There is also another interesting target type in hisec which are suspect baiters, there is one in Ashab that has a Bowhead ready nearby. These are the fun targets that a hunter like yourself could go for, some of them have juicy bounties on.
Another interesting possibility is of course assisting in war decs and taking out station huggers or pipe hunters of certain war deckers, there was a very good AG player who did this a lot. Again tough to do.
Hunting hunters, that would make you elite.
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Hmmm perhaps another option for the Clan.
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Yup, I agree. In fact this would be the theme song:
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I’ve always felt this, that high sec in EVE is pretty special, and is far from its true potential of setting this game even more apart from all others.
Perhaps there should be a game mechanism to motivate criminals to wander around New Eden more. Or change the current mechanism that may be de-motivating players from becoming criminals in the first place like sec status.
Sec status has been around for a long time and it seems like most criminals have their ways of slogging through it, or just ignoring it. It could be I’m just lazy or bad at being a criminal, but personally I’ve found repairing sec status to be a terrible chore and discouraging. -0.2 hit to sec status per ship gank doesn’t seem like a lot, but grinding two Lv2 missions to move up by only 0.01 seems a bit steep. And I’m not in the mood to grind standings for Lv4 missions or do belt ratting with that char, as I already have a char that is way more satisfying and efficient at grinding.
Don’t mean to derail your topic, but just sayin, if there are things that are discouraging players a bit too much from the criminal life, then there is that much less content going on in high sec. More criminals could mean a more lively high sec, and possibly more of the occasional juicy bounty targets.
EDIT: I should point out that I’m not for more crime just for the sake of more crime. I am for a balanced approach of a little more danger and content in high sec, complimented by a good new mechanism to counter the uptick in crime.
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tags my friend are a criminals love juice its easy to go from -10 to 0.0 with tags no slog other then having isk to purchase tags
That song is great. But it needs more cowbell !
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This song needs no cow bell.
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Tags do seem to be an alternative, but personally with the one hour/day that I’ve traditionally had, that’s still a few days of grinding just to get sec status from -5 to -2. That’s just isk going to repair status and not even getting ahead in the game. It’s a hurdle that really motivated criminals might not even notice, but for other players that may just want to dip their feet once in awhile, it’s possibly still discouraging.
If there is no room in the game for the casual criminal, that’s fine. It may sound silly, but personally, I just wanted to contribute something to the dangerous atmosphere of high sec, as I feel that is what keeps me coming back when I’m doing “law-abiding” activities. I guess what I’m trying to ask is; could high sec use a few more criminals, and if so, what would it take to motivate, or at least not discourage, more players to do so?
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We never really address this “hunting the hunter” thing so much as we should. It’s as if someone dumped 20 tons of red herring and strawmen in the way of that path.
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Sorry for the late reply. Haven’t been able to read and react properly.
I’m thinking about your responses and will write proper posts in a bit.
@Dracvlad That first line of yours made no sense to me at all, but I’ve figured it out via the rest and appreciate your feedback a lot.
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It’s not that I mind the effort, but I’m beginning to think that it’d be like roaming around nullsec pre blackout, hoping that someone shows up.
Hey, as far as I know my double- and tripple-volley thrasher are still the way to go and there’s nothing better out there yet. 
Ha, yeah. They kind of make the whole situation much worse.
This sounds like it’s too meta for bringing the RPG back into MMORPG, but yeah … disrupting these people’s game play sounds actually like an interesting thing to do. The problem is, of course, that they’re ready for literally anything because that’s their whole point. Still, interesting idea.
I’ve spent far too much time trying this kind of stuff and only rarely did it yield anything. It’s not particularly hard to make people dock up, or warp off, but they can just return easily. It’s like resisting the Borg. Futile.
This isn’t quite what I’ve imagined …
Hm.
I’m not sure that’s appealing to most. In the end you’re basically trying to move a big fat target and a game mechanic trying to make that more appealing kind of goes against the idea that -10 poeple should be able to be shot all the time, everywhere.
The only real issue is the GCC. The sec status isn’t that much of an issue for most. Most people use scouting alts and just undock and warp to the target. Personally, for me, the fact that the faction police is on my ass all the time is what actually makes it the most fun thing to do in this game and is also what ruined lowsec for me. Completely. GCC though … holy ■■■■ … psychological torture. I hate it. It makes me want to quit.
And no self respecting outlaw wrecks (you call it “repair” but you really got that backwards) his sec. Holy ■■■■, reaching -10 is hard work! No ■■■■■■■ kidding! 
Plus, ratting up is PURE HORROR and tagging up is just ■■■■■■■ lame.
Hell, I want a -10 feature just for myself, where I’m blinking on everyone’s overview where ever in the system and they can all warp to 150km distance from me, from where ever they are. That’d be so ■■■■■■■ amazing, I’d love it!
Eeehhhh now I’ve digressed. I’m beginning to think that “bounty hunter” really doesn’t offer much. Back when the whole sum was paid out it still had a meaning, but nowadays? No, that’s not about the ISK one can make, but about the fact that back then people didn’t throw away the money just to bounty someone, exactly because he could easily grab it anyway.
Not always.
There was a suspect baiter in Osmon I recall who, one day, a bunch of Russians got tired of him and set a trap. Something like a 30 Billion ISK ship went down. I recall checking on that name in local for a while. Never saw that player again.
It can be done. And they who would engage in shenanigans and accuse others of rage-quitting are more likely to be the rage-quitter if they get owned hard enough.
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I think this is where our philosophies may diverge on crime. That’s awesome to be a player that can go guns blazing all-in outlaw, and I enjoy seeing some of the RPG elements that goes with it. And maybe someday I may have the time to explore that side. But I hope there is room also for the outlaw that no one suspects. I feel that players in high sec shouldn’t know where danger might come from. “That guy there with 0.0 sec status looks harmless enough…” That’s some of the reason I personally care about sec status, and hope CCP may someday revisit that game mechanic.
Perhaps then you could use your vast experience in high sec content to come up with some ideas on how a new working bounty system could be achieved? There seems to be a new thread every couple months on new bounty ideas, so there does seem to be some intense demand for it. But it’s a very tricky puzzle to solve, all of them have flaws. Maybe mull it over, and an idea or two may sprout over time? Even though it’s like searching for gold at the end of a rainbow, I think an actual working bounty system is still something worth the effort and could make high sec stand out even more among all the games out there.
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Well yeah, I do have an idea.
I’m writing this from a perspective of someone who cares about the money, because most people simply do that. They don’t want to kill for sports, which is perfectly fine, though things of course shouldn’t work in a way that it feeds greed. Greed is bad. Ask Hilmar. : - )
There needs to be more people with higher bounty and the payout mechanic needs to be changed. The 20% payout might prevent people from cashing it themselves via alts/friends, but it also makes it meaningless. The full payout might make people cash it in themselves, but in return does it make everyone who doesn’t do such a thing an actually interesting target. There are people who truly appreciate this. That’s some serious spice added to the game for both the hunted and the hunter.
Let me tell you the short story of how I had a billion ISK bounty on my head, before these changes. Good old Solstice Project sat in Dodixie trying to talk money out of some honourable drunk person. Let’s say I was really good at that. At first I didn’t know I’ve succeeded, but when I came back from work four hours later I’ve seen he indeed sent me money … in form of bounty … one billion ISK. That was a lot back then.
And I was sitting in Dodixie. As -7. Ha! Panic! 
Back then Dodixie was really active. A lot of people at the undock. Back then I also wasn’t yet skilled enough to figure out how to get the ■■■■ out of there and it was a thrilling 15minutes I’ve used to try to escape until Alex [forgotthefullname] managed to get the final blow. Sadly I had no instaundock bookmark back then and using the pod wasn’t an option, because it had to do a full turn around. My mind was too occupied to come up with something sensible. lol
When the whole bounty is being paid out, then there is actual meaning because people will come after you for it. When you know only 20% of the bounty will be paid, then you know very well that most people will not give a ■■■■, because the vast majority of people will simply not come to check if you have a ship/fitting that makes an attack worthwhile.
I believe bounty should be paid out in full up until a hard limit calculated in relation to the cost of the ship used to gank the target … plus profit. When I invest 100 million ISK to gank someone who has a billion ISK bounty, then I should be compensated that money PLUS making profit.
Now some losers people will scream THAT’LL INCREASE SUICIDE GANKING and I will say YES THAT’S WHAT IT’S SUPPOSED TO BE DOING BOUNTY HUNTING IS PERFECT FOR GANKERS AND THE GAME WOULD BENEFIT FROM MORE, you sissies. Bounty Hunters aren’t honourable people. They’re killers. ASSASSINS. Your skewed, overly romantic idea of what bounty hunters are is from TV. You’re basically Disney Princes and those guys don’t actually stand a ■■■■■■■ chance in a competitive environment.
Uuuuhhh … I digress.
… otoh when I invest a double-volley thrasher for less than two million ISK, the payout should be 2 million ISK plus a bit. If the amount of bounty on someone’s head doesn’t cover the cost, well, then the full bounty should be paid out.
This way abuse is being prevented, because anyone who wants to cash in on his bounty will not gain a lot when he uses a cheap ship and is still being forced to pay a lot if he wants to remove a high amount of bounty.
Now please … fill the loopholes, so I can rethink this first part.
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In before people being triggered by one of the words and posting without reading the full post. Also in before people who start formulating a response before they’ve read the whole thing.
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Let me see if I understand your concept correctly.
Bountied Pilot with 1 Billion Bounty
Bounty Hunter “ganks” Bountied Pilot with 80 million isk (as an example) tornado (and if in Concord controlled space forfeits ganking ship) and collects, say, (again, as an example) 80 million isk plus 10 percent of “bounty”. This “gank” would decrease the Bountied Pilot’s bounty by 180 million isk, and the remaining bounty to be collected would be 820 million isk.
So, the Ganker loses time spent hunting, plus their “weapon” (the ganking ship) and gains 180 million isk?
The Bountied Pilot suffers a loss on their killboard (public or not) and has their bounty reduced by 180 million isk.
Is that what you are suggesting? If so, I’d suggest one additional modification of your proposal, I’d eliminate the security status loss (to the bounty hunter/ganker) when a bounty payment is involved.
As an additional observation, you are proposing eliminating the current mechanism involving the valuation of the Bountied Pilot’s ship, so the Bountied Pilot’s ship valuation would play no part in the calculation of bounty payout.
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I do agree that the game shouldn’t cater to greed, that’s a good point. But there should at the same time be some excitement and suitable reward that originates from going after a juicy bounty, and that’s a good point too. A mechanism that appeals to players want of some spice, as you say, and maybe even vanity, could be interesting. I bookmarked this in case an idea ever sprouts from your post. Liked the story too.
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