Pirates got an AI upgrade, allowing them to demand cargo instead of resolving everything through their lasers: maybe it's time we gave the Vipers another option too?
Perhaps the police, on discovering a combat involving Clean participants on both sides, could first issue a demand for all craft to stand down and to put their weapons offline: "You have ten seconds to comply", etc. Anyone failing to comply quickly enough is then tagged as an Offender, and could be subject to police attack. Ships who comply are then warned to leave the system or be subject to a fine on docking at the main station.
Maybe something like this:
- anyone landing a hit on a clean ship becomes an offender, or see their bounty increased
- anyone landing a hit on a non-clean ship gets a small decrease to their bounty (more for fugitives than for offenders). Destroying a non-clean ship decreases your own bounty by the amount proportional to the ship's bounty, instead of receiving it as credits.
- I think the Vipers assign higher priority to ships with higher bounty already, and I think that hitting a Viper puts a higher bounty on your head.
- Reverting an offender (fugitive: not sure) status by helping the cops would be nice. Perhaps by reaching a zero bounty + killing a fugitive.
Destroying a non-clean ship decreases your own bounty
Good idea, just award small amount, like -1 for offenders and -2 for fugitives. If the reward is large or too easy to get (like after a single hit) then reduce the worth of clean status. But an additional way to clean yourself would be good, even if no police nearby.
Destroying a non-clean ship decreases your own bounty
Good idea, just award small amount, like -1 for offenders and -2 for fugitives. If the reward is large or too easy to get (like after a single hit) then reduce the worth of clean status. But an additional way to clean yourself would be good, even if no police nearby.
Criminals can hunt down other criminals for a number of less than legal reasons...
Criminals can hunt down other criminals for a number of less than legal reasons...
True - but the result is fewer criminals. A pragmatic attitude would be to encourage crooks to fight each other, rather than prey on honest citizens.
Perhaps a reward system could be limited to Offenders only: if you're a Fugitive, no amount of "good works" is going to reduce your bounty.
Or there might be room for a third class of criminal: the Probationer. As a Probationer you're free from attack by Police or bounty-hunters, but you have to achieve a certain number of "good works" within a selected time-period. This could include very low points for destroying asteroids (breaking rocks/picking litter), higher points for clearing out criminals (but no bounty), and higher still for rescuing escape pods (but no reward). Probationers are monitored all the time, so effectively the police are watching everything you do: you can't get away with a little bit of piracy on the side when there are no Vipers around.
How about a free-will GalCop tracking device? If you land on a GalCop station with more bounty than last time then popup a mission screen and offer an equipment (also available in eq shop using "requires_not_clean"=yes;) which track your ship like police is nearby. So you get bounty if you do piracy anywhere but reduce it if you destroy bad boys and also at every certain flight times without doing anything illegal.
With this on board you can feel yourself as voluntary probationer when your goal is to reduce your bounty as fast as possible.
Criminals can hunt down other criminals for a number of less than legal reasons...
True - but the result is fewer criminals. A pragmatic attitude would be to encourage crooks to fight each other, rather than prey on honest citizens.
Consider also that an offender/fugitive doesn't want to give away his position to the police or even gather any attention from it, and that's what happens if killing a criminal he claims his 'reward'. If they do something 'good' from the point of view of the police, it doesn't mean that they should be rewarded, or that they do something 'good' from the point of view of legality, so that they should be rewarded for it.
Consider also that an offender/fugitive doesn't want to give away his position to the police or even gather any attention from it, and that's what happens if killing a criminal he claims his 'reward'. If they do something 'good' from the point of view of the police, it doesn't mean that they should be rewarded, or that they do something 'good' from the point of view of legality, so that they should be rewarded for it.
A good point - it would make more sense then for any legal credit to be given to probationers only. Maybe amnesties could be offered intermittently, giving a time window for players with criminal records to sign up as probationers and letting them "work off their debt to society".
I tried updating the oxp through the oxp manager and says download failed, even uninstalled and reinstalled, no success. Never happened before with bounty system oxp, always had the current version.
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Flying the D.T.T. War Lance
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