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(Outdated) Elite Dangerous: Simple Guide to Bounty Hunting

CMDR_Seyton Dec 26th, 2014 (edited) 2,311 Never
  1. So you want to kill ships and make (not-that-much) dosh, well good news Bounty Hunting is for you. But before you fly out to a nav beacon and start shooting at everything that moves you should probably figure out how to prepare so here is a quick (not really) crash guide to everything you would want to know for Bounty Hunting.
  2.  
  3. 1 - Preparing for Hunting
  4. 1.1 - Ships
  5. 1.2 - Weapons
  6. 1.3 - Subsystems and Utility
  7.  
  8. 2 - Bounty Hunting
  9. 2.1 - Locations
  10. 2.2 - Bounties
  11. 2.3 - Hunting and Killing
  12.  
  13.  
  14. ------------------------------------------------------------  1.1 Ships  --------------------------------------------------------
  15.  
  16. Sidewinder > Eagle > Viper > Python > Anaconda
  17.  
  18. The real bounty hunting begins with the Viper, the following is a list of ships you can obliterate without losing your shields, and the rest are slightly harder to kill ships:
  19.  
  20. Free kills tier: Sidewinder, Eagle, Hauler, Adder, Viper, Cobra III, Type 6, Asp, Type 7, Federal Dropship, Orca, Python, Type 9.
  21.  
  22. Somewhat of a challenge tier: Imperial Clipper, Anaconda
  23.  
  24.  
  25. The Imperial Clipper is best ignored, the bounties are often shit, it hits like a truck with its two large hardpoints, and it is far more maneuverable than you are. You can still kill it, but it isnt worth the time.
  26.  
  27. The Anaconda is tough, has turrets that eat your shields, and more often than not has missiles that will ruin your day. Is only worth the time when its bounty is above 50,000.
  28.  
  29. ---------------------------------------------------------  1.2 Weapons  ---------------------------------------------------------
  30.  
  31.  
  32.  
  33.     *** I recommend you check this guide http://pastebin.com/rsi9V23s for a much more in-depth and useful look into weapons. ***
  34.  
  35.  
  36.  
  37. You want a balance between thermal and kinetic weapons. If you have a choice between small, medium and large hardpoints put kinetics on your largest points. Unless you do a full thermal set up, which I wouldnt recommend unless you plan to be out bounty hunting for a very long time.
  38.  
  39. Kinetics
  40.  
  41. Multicannon
  42. + Arguably the best kinetic weapon for bounty hunting
  43. + Huge amount of ammo
  44. + Great against all types/sizes of ships
  45. + Best bang for your buck ammo wise for Bounty Hunting
  46. + Great damage
  47. - Poor range, have to be under 1km in order to hit your target consistently.
  48.  
  49. ALWAYS Gimble M.Cannons, you need to be firing continuously at close range in order to actually outdamage other kinetic weapons, and you wont be able to do that without gimbled version unless you fly an Eagle.
  50.  
  51. Cannons
  52. + Damage, a shitton of damage
  53. + Good range
  54. + Acceptable cost for the ammo
  55. + Best Kinetic weapon for killing larger ships
  56. - Can be difficult to hit smaller ships
  57. - Not that much ammo
  58.  
  59. Do NOT gimble, ever.
  60.  
  61. Fragmentation Cannon
  62. + So much fucking damage
  63. +++++ No, seriously, you will fucking obliterate an Anaconda with two medium version of these faster than any other weapon.
  64. --- Worst range in the game, will have to be < 300m to hit
  65. --- only 30 ammo
  66. - Expensive as shit
  67.  
  68. Missiles
  69. + Brokenly OP, will kill everything and anything in a few hits
  70. + Penetrates shields and armor like its nothing
  71. - Totally breaks the game, is equivalent to rare trade runs
  72.  
  73. Thermal
  74.  
  75. Beam
  76. + The most effective thermal weapon there is
  77. + Good range
  78. + Good damage
  79. + Acceptable damage against hull
  80. - Drains weapon power like mad (you will need an upgraded Power Distributor to use these)
  81. - Crap against subsystems
  82.  
  83. Plasma
  84. + Will chew through any shield like its nothing
  85. + Makes Anaconda hunting a breeze
  86. - Has ammo
  87. - Expensive
  88. - Shit against armor (but better than Beam)
  89.  
  90. 1.3 Subsystems and Utility
  91. You need the following at an absolute minimum
  92.  
  93. - Bounty Scanner
  94. - Chaff
  95. - Shield Booster
  96. - Improved Power Distributor
  97. - Shields
  98.  
  99. These are nonnegotiable utility/upgrades. The Bounty Scanner is obvious. Chaff and Shield boosters are your 'Oh shit I need to bail' defense systems. The improved Power Distributor will allow you to fire your kinetic weapon without power loss and improve the amount of time you can fire your thermal weapons, as well as your recharge rate on your shield/weapons and thrust boost ability. Upgrading your shields is obvious, stronger shields means less time running away like a pussy trying to recharge it.
  100.  
  101. A repair kit may also be useful if you can afford/find one in order to make repairs if you do happen to take subsystem damage.
  102.  
  103. ---------------------------------------------------- 2. Bounty Hunting ----------------------------------------------------------
  104.  
  105. So you're in your ship loaded up with weapons/subsystems and utilities, now its time to pick a location find some bounties and kill them.
  106.  
  107. Firstly, a word about bounties. Every ship comes with a basic scanner that will tell you if a ship is wanted or not which you can see on your hud. This scanner will only show you the bounty IN THAT SYSTEM. It will NOT show you bounties from other systems, and that includes bounties on a ship from other systems but placed on them from the same faction.
  108.  
  109. For example, you scan an Asp and its wanted with a 15,000 bounty in a system, you do a scan with a bounty scanner and the bounty increases to 25,000. The extra 10,000 bounty came from bounties on that ship from the same faction, but from other systems. In order to see this new bounty, go to your contacts and scroll down to the ship.
  110.  
  111. If a ship comes up with 'clean' they can still have bounties from other systems, which you can find by scanning them with a bounty scanner (again, to see if they have a bounty, go into your contact list and find them, it will be under bounties). However, attacking them will fine you as in the system they are in currently they are considered innocent, and you will be attacked by police.
  112.  
  113. If your ship is destroyed you will lose ALL of your bounties that have not been cashed in. Buying a new ship and selling the old one will NOT make you lose your bounties, they will transfer from one ship to another.
  114.  
  115. You dont need to worry about the combat rank of AI ships, the only exception to this rule is fighting Anaconda's. You will have a hard time against Elite/Dangerous ranked Anaconda's.
  116.  
  117. ----------------------------------------------------  2.1 - Locations  ----------------------------------------------------------
  118.  
  119. Its time to find a system:
  120. 1. Go to your map and find an Anarchy system
  121. 2. Ensure that Anarchy system has a station or outpost you can dock at (and that it is an explored Anarchy system, an outpost indicates this)
  122. 3. Check to make sure it has a Empire System and a Federal System (and station) nearby (no more than 15 ly away)
  123.  
  124. Firstly, Anarchy systems give the highest bounties. Second, 90% of the ships you scan down in Anarchy systems will have bounties, making it far easier to find targets. Third, no police will try to steal your kill, and you wont get a fine/bounty for attacking innocents or fucking up. Finally, you will find an abundance of Anaconda's, Pythons and other high bounty ships.
  125.  
  126. You want an Anarchy system near a Empire and Federal system because you will eventually need to cash in your bounties and these are the two most common types of bounties you will find. Over time you will slowly build up a bounty for Alliance, but considering Alliance are so far away from starting locations its probably best to just ignore it. You will NOT be flying to these stations for ammo/fuel, you will fly to the station/outpost in the Anarchy system you are hunting in to save time.
  127.  
  128. If you get bored of Nav beacons you can instead go to Resource Extraction Sites or Metallic Rings. Ensure however they are 'pristine' in condition, otherwise you will only find basic bounties.
  129.  
  130. ---------------------------------------------------  2.2  Bounties  ------------------------------------------------------------
  131.  
  132. Be smart. Trying to kill an Imperial Clipper with a 10k bounty isnt worth your time if there are other ships available at that moment you could scan. Time is money, and if your using kinetic weapons then you have limited ammo too.
  133.  
  134. The following is a very rough guide on the prices you can get from each ship. Its very rough because bounties can vary greatly, but at the very least it should alert you to the fact that killing bigger does not always mean better bounties.
  135.  
  136. Siderwinder             100 - 3,000
  137. Eagle                   500 - 8,000
  138. Hauler                  1,500 - 8,000
  139. Adder                   5,000 - 25,000
  140. Viper                   3,000 - 30,000
  141. Cobra                   3,000 - 30,000
  142. Type 6                  2,000 - 20,000                  (Rare to have a bounty)
  143. Asp                     5,000 - 40,000
  144. Type 7                  3,000 - 30,000                  (Rare to have a bounty)
  145. Imperial Clipper        1,000 - 40,000
  146. Federal Dropship        15,000 - 45,0000                (Very rare to have a bounty)
  147. Orca                    Unknown                         (Insanely rare to have a bounty)
  148. Python                  15,000 - 80,000
  149. Anaconda                15,000 - 150,000
  150.  
  151.  
  152. --------------------------------------------- 2.3 Hunting and Killing  --------------------------------------------------------
  153.  
  154. This section is basically just tips and tricks that make life easier for killing.
  155.  
  156. Fly to your Anarchy system's nav beacon and sit by the beacon itself (the physical beacon is where ships jump into). At this point its just a waiting game, you should always have one ship on your radar with a new ship jumping in every minute or two, more often than not you will have multiple ships jump in a short space of time. Just fly up to them, scan them, check your contacts page for bounties, then decide if your going to kill it or not. If its on the free kills tier list then go to town on its ass, if its a Clipper or Anaconda take a second to think whether its worth it or not.
  157.  
  158. Conserve your ammo. In 99% of cases the reason you have to leave the beacon is because you run out of ammo for your kinetic weapons (you are still saving a shitton of time by using kinetics on subsystems though and not using just thermal weapons). Get close to your target (under 1km) to fire kinetics.
  159.  
  160. Always, ALWAYS target the power plant. Firstly, most ships PP will exploded before its hull reaches zero, saving you time and ammo. Second, damaging the PP will reduce the amount of power in the ship, meaning its weapons will start disabling themselves in order to maintain thrusters, shields and life support. Just mash Y to target the PP, its normally past the two thrusters.
  161.  
  162. Sometimes you will scan down ships with no bounties. If they are Cobras, Vipers, Sidewinders or Anacondas they are likely bounty hunters themselves. This can be incredibly useful as they will scan down ships and attack anything with a bounty, both making the battle stand out (three cheers for bright red lasers) and damaging/distracting the ship for you. NPCs are now set to NOT steal bounties, but it will happen every once and a while. Being an Anarchy system you could kill these ships, but it isnt worth the time or ammo, as they often jump away after a small period of time with no contacts to scan.
  163.  
  164. Pirates will scan you continuously, if you are holding cargo expect a face-full of thermal and kinetic shots.
  165.  
  166. Turning in bounties will make the stations/outposts you trade the bounty into friendly towards you once you reach a certain threshold. If you want to gain favor with a certain station this is one way to increase your standing with them.
  167.  
  168. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  169.  
  170. Well thats all there is to it, now you can enjoy the best part of Elite Dangerous by killing helpless NPCs and cashing in the blood money for hookers and blow. Once you feel confident you can go hunt players for more risk and less reward! Horray!
  171.  
  172. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
  173.  
  174. Confirmed/Unconfirmed Rumors that may or may not be true
  175. - There is a rumor that increasing your combat rank increases the probability of higher bounty ships jumping into your area
  176. - There is a rumor that resource extraction points in planetary rings (mainly pristine metallic) have an abundance of Anacondas with high bounties (resource extraction points are a viable alternative to Nav Beacons, but considering Nav Beacons are easier to find its somewhat a moot point)
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