Fractal Softworks Forum

Please login or register.

Login with username, password and session length
Advanced search  

News:

Starsector 0.97a is out! (02/02/24); New blog post: Simulator Enhancements (03/13/24)

Author Topic: Bounty Payout Rework  (Read 1959 times)

Sabaton

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 523
    • View Profile
Bounty Payout Rework
« on: April 07, 2021, 02:24:29 AM »

      SO, many people are complaining about the credits payout of fleet and station bounties (as well as the supplies costs to reach them) when compared to other low risk high reward alternatives (drug-a-lug-lug, mainly).

      And even if you increase bounty pay it would still fall short because smuggling is faster, cheaper on resource expenditure and (unless you're really unlucky) doesn't come with the risk of losing ships.

      Therefore bounties need to entice players with a different type of reward (like exploration does) than raw cash as cargo running will always be the better option. And that reward should be increased weapons/ships salvage from wanted fleets/stations.

      That gives players a more interesting choice: low risk/high credits cargo running or high risk/high salvage bounty hunting (which would justify lower bounty credits pay as employers consider salvage as part of your reward).

      In addition, stations should not start with missing modules (to help increase salvage) and even a lone station should wield ships for salvage (that were docked at the time, presumably).

      That would make the game activities look like this: smuggling for cash, exploring for colony items and bounty hunting for fleet improvements. 
Logged

Amoebka

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 1318
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #1 on: April 07, 2021, 05:11:00 AM »

Another nice reward would be s-modded ships. Currently if you defeat enemy fleets with s-mods, the recoverable wrecks don't have them. At the stage of the game where you can kill high-end bounties with tons of officered super ships, getting a couple badly d-modded cruisers doesn't feel like a reward at all.

Then bounties will at least be trading money (and player's time and effort) for cool ships. Currently they are just a waste of in-game resources for entertainment.
Logged

TaLaR

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 2794
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #2 on: April 07, 2021, 05:14:09 AM »

Another nice reward would be s-modded ships. Currently if you defeat enemy fleets with s-mods, the recoverable wrecks don't have them. At the stage of the game where you can kill high-end bounties with tons of officered super ships, getting a couple badly d-modded cruisers doesn't feel like a reward at all.

Yeah, this is basically the game saying: "Don't fight s-modded ships ever, s-mods increase difficulty, but not rewards"
Logged

Chaos Blade

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 74
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #3 on: April 07, 2021, 05:20:35 AM »

      SO, many people are complaining about the credits payout of fleet and station bounties (as well as the supplies costs to reach them) when compared to other low risk high reward alternatives (drug-a-lug-lug, mainly).

      And even if you increase bounty pay it would still fall short because smuggling is faster, cheaper on resource expenditure and (unless you're really unlucky) doesn't come with the risk of losing ships.

      Therefore bounties need to entice players with a different type of reward (like exploration does) than raw cash as cargo running will always be the better option. And that reward should be increased weapons/ships salvage from wanted fleets/stations.

      That gives players a more interesting choice: low risk/high credits cargo running or high risk/high salvage bounty hunting (which would justify lower bounty credits pay as employers consider salvage as part of your reward).

      In addition, stations should not start with missing modules (to help increase salvage) and even a lone station should wield ships for salvage (that were docked at the time, presumably).

      That would make the game activities look like this: smuggling for cash, exploring for colony items and bounty hunting for fleet improvements.

I had posted something liek this not too long ago.
THe idea I had was that these are bounties, these folks did *something*  to *** off somebody who is somebody and put a price on their heads.
This could be a serious insult, or they stole something or kidnapped somebody, so we could have an extra step to bounties, regarding the cause for it in the first place.
you could have a massive cache of goodies the guy stole, or maybe some dirt on the person that put the bounty on the first place, and could be sold back to them, to their rivals (within and without) or even returned as if for a heafty reputation bonus, or they took somebody, returning a kidnapped victim should have some sort of "bonus" reward (in cash or spice, maybe some sweet tech, or a ship or what not)

Which makes me wonder if we could take a page from Elite Dangerous and give some of these bounties turn in variable rewards (reputation, goods, weapons, cash, or a mixture of the above)
Logged

Sabaton

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 523
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #4 on: April 07, 2021, 05:39:44 AM »

Another nice reward would be s-modded ships. Currently if you defeat enemy fleets with s-mods, the recoverable wrecks don't have them. At the stage of the game where you can kill high-end bounties with tons of officered super ships, getting a couple badly d-modded cruisers doesn't feel like a reward at all.

Yeah, this is basically the game saying: "Don't fight s-modded ships ever, s-mods increase difficulty, but not rewards"

I can't believe that's a thing......

Yes, recovered ships with S mods should be more likely for recovery and but have just one S mod in them so you have to use your own points to buff them further. Maybe space apart such bounties in number so the player doesn't power roll too fast. 

Either way, money should not be the universal reward as the activity with less risk will always be more tempting. I haven't seen people draw much direct comparison between exploration and smuggling/bounties as it comes with it's own rewards (blueprints, elite officers, colony items, planet surveying and now exclusive weapons)...

But people always compare bounty hunting to cargo running because money is the common reward and cargo is always more tempting. 

Chaos Blade, that is also a good idea, taking out deserters should give a bigger rep bonus as you're basically taking care of factions personal disputes. Weapons and ships would be recovered from salvage.

But again, some spacing out would have to be made to avoid fast power ballin'.
« Last Edit: April 07, 2021, 06:01:36 AM by Sabaton »
Logged

Chaos Blade

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 74
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #5 on: April 07, 2021, 07:02:48 AM »

Another nice reward would be s-modded ships. Currently if you defeat enemy fleets with s-mods, the recoverable wrecks don't have them. At the stage of the game where you can kill high-end bounties with tons of officered super ships, getting a couple badly d-modded cruisers doesn't feel like a reward at all.

Yeah, this is basically the game saying: "Don't fight s-modded ships ever, s-mods increase difficulty, but not rewards"

I can't believe that's a thing......

Yes, recovered ships with S mods should be more likely for recovery and but have just one S mod in them so you have to use your own points to buff them further. Maybe space apart such bounties in number so the player doesn't power roll too fast. 

Either way, money should not be the universal reward as the activity with less risk will always be more tempting. I haven't seen people draw much direct comparison between exploration and smuggling/bounties as it comes with it's own rewards (blueprints, elite officers, colony items, planet surveying and now exclusive weapons)...

But people always compare bounty hunting to cargo running because money is the common reward and cargo is always more tempting. 

Chaos Blade, that is also a good idea, taking out deserters should give a bigger rep bonus as you're basically taking care of factions personal disputes. Weapons and ships would be recovered from salvage.

But again, some spacing out would have to be made to avoid fast power ballin'.

Not just recovered from salvage but from caches or as direct rewards.
Imagine you are sent after a former tritach exec that ran off with some sweet ships, tech, but more importantly data on a new development, you go after the guy, ventilate his fleet and recover the data.
You take the data back to some place, maybe a drop point, maybe some tritach world and deliver it, and then it is when you cash in the bounty AND/OR get the bonus (which could be a number of things, including extra cash, or a some surplus hull of some sort*)

*had an idea, maybe the bonus reward could be modified by how liked you are by a faction (so bigger rewards the more liked you are, specially if you have a commission with them, up to some limit)
Logged

Sabaton

  • Admiral
  • *****
  • Posts: 523
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #6 on: April 08, 2021, 02:56:50 AM »

Hmm, I still think getting ships and weapons should be a direct consequence of battle and not received as rewards given how, lore wise, jealous factions are with their warships.

Receiving ships as pay would invalidate:

1. Commissions for access to military markets.
2. Underworld heists.
3. To a lesser degree, colony heavy industry.
Logged

Chaos Blade

  • Lieutenant
  • **
  • Posts: 74
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #7 on: April 08, 2021, 08:05:33 AM »

Hmm, I still think getting ships and weapons should be a direct consequence of battle and not received as rewards given how, lore wise, jealous factions are with their warships.

Receiving ships as pay would invalidate:

1. Commissions for access to military markets.
2. Underworld heists.
3. To a lesser degree, colony heavy industry.

Not necessarily, we are talking about, dunno, an old ship, with two or three D mods, not too big, nothing of their mainline, and as for weapons maybe a small selection, so it would be an alternative much in the same way underwolrd heist don't make commisions or heavy industry pointless

I am not seeing how they would make those unnecessary, specially if they are the result of bonus objectives (and worse come worse, each faction could get a rewards table of stuff they might be willing to give you, much like the ship graveyard in the tutorial)
Logged

Maethendias

  • Commander
  • ***
  • Posts: 217
  • Esteemed Warlord
    • View Profile
Re: Bounty Payout Rework
« Reply #8 on: April 08, 2021, 12:18:40 PM »

i have an idea for a reward for bounty missions:

menace

yes, a new "relation" for lack of a better word, a universal relation you could use instead of faction relations

have a pesky inspection or raid coming up but arent really interested in... literally wasting 15 skillpoints more than youd loose fighting the fleet (seriously wth, you loose more reputation doing diplomacy, than fighting the fleet), just spend some menace points

have a police fleet try to "scan" your cargo? are you sure you want to mess with ME?

could have a few interesting interactions too, especially when outside the coreworlds, a high menace rate could mean fleets would avoid you more often


one could even balance it out by making high menace give negative rates with trades or direct faction relation gain
Logged