Bounty System

An OXP adding depth to the vanilla game bounty system

Warning: Static Kill Count Version 0.15 (May 2024) prevents your being credited with your full kill count until you have visited a GalCop office/kiosk on a station! This can be adjusted via Library OXPs "Config for AddOns" - see your F4 ship-station interface screen This is rectified in version 0.16

Overview

The bounty system in the core game of Oolite is somewhat primitive, a product of its 8-bit roots. If you commit a crime, regardless of the seriousness of that crime, your bounty is halved with each witchspace jump. So you can shoot down a flotilla of police ships in one system, but 8 to 10 jumps later you're clean again. Also, if you want to quickly erase your bounty you can purchase and use an escape pod, or do a galactic jump.

This OXP aims to add depth and meaning to the bounty system by making your crimes persistent. So, if you commit a crime in system A, and then come back to system A later, your bounty will be remembered. It will not degrade over time, nor will it vanish by using an escape pod or a galactic jump, or when buying a new ship.

Also, different crimes have a varying degree of severity, meaning there is a distinction between smuggling illegal goods to murdering a pilot by destroying their ship. The following table describes the different severities and levels of applicability:

Level	Example of crime	Applicability
Severity 1	Smuggling illegal goods	Local systems only (within 5ly)
Severity 2	Shooting main station	Across the current chart
Severity 3	Destroying another ship	Across all charts

Local systems only: This means the crime only applies to systems within 5LY of the system where the crime was committed. So if you are caught smuggling goods in system A, then jump to system B (which is less than 5ly from system A), your crime is still applicable. Jump to system C, more than 5 LY from system A, then your crime is no longer applicable.

Across the current chart: This means the crime will apply to all systems in the current chart. So if you shoot the main station in system A, your crime is applicable in system B and system C and all systems in the current chart. But if you use a galactic jump and go to the next chart, those crimes will not be applicable.

Across all charts: This means the crime will apply to all systems in all charts. No matter where you go, your crime will be applicable and you will potentially be labelled a "Fugitive".

The F7 System Data screen can help you in assessing your potential bounty in a given system. When you select a system on the F6 screen and then visit the F7 System Data screen the computer will scan your warrant list and determine how the system will likely view your presence. If you have committed crimes in that system one of the following things will be displayed:

 This system considers you [a criminal/an] offender

This text will be displayed if your overall bounty in the system is less than 50₢.

 This system considers you a [criminal] fugitive

This text will be displayed if your overall bounty in the system in greater than or equal to 50₢.

The "criminal" part of the text will be added if you committed crimes in that system in particular. If the "criminal" element is not present you haven't committed crimes in that system, but your crimes in other systems have become known and you will be considered an offender or fugitive if you visit that system.

Normal Bounties

Credits from the destruction of a ship that has a bounty is now deferred, and can be claimed from the GalCop Security Office on any GalCop Station. (This must be enabled via Library Config.)

GalCop Security Office

All GalCop-aligned stations have either a security office (when at the main station), or a security kiosk (when at other GalCop-aligned stations), in which you can view any outstanding bounties you might have picked up in the current galactic sector, and when/where those crimes were committed. You can also view any outstanding you might have in other sectors. Through this interface you can view the details of each bounty, the crimes that were committed to generate the bounty and, if available, pay the fine to clear your record. The available of the payment option is dependent on the amount of time since the crime was committed, and the location the crime was committed. See Paying for fines below.

Warrant Scanner

While your crimes might be applicable in multiple systems, that doesn't necessarily mean your crimes will be visible in all systems automatically. If you shoot at the main station in system A, and jump to system B, your status will initially be "Clean". This means that this system currently doesn't have a record of your crimes.

However, all police and most bounty hunters can be equipped with a "Warrant Scanner", a device that will scan your ship and perform a GalCop Criminal Database lookup based on the specifications of your ship and pilot registration. Should any criminal records be found they will become visible in this system. All GalCop police ships have this device installed and they will actively try to use it on all ships visible to them. Once your crimes have been revealed to system authorities, you will be wanted in that system whenever you visit.

You can purchase and install the Warrant Scanner yourself, and do the same thing on other ships. You must be within 15km of the target (police ships can scan from 20km), and when activated you must stay within that distance for 10 seconds (8 seconds for police) and keep the target locked for the scanner to work. The scanner won't work when your cloaking device is engaged, or if you're traveling at injector or torus speeds. If the target engages a cloak the scanning will stop.

The output of the scanner functions in two ways: MFD mode (which will use a spare MFD slot to display scanning messages), or non-MFD mode (which will output scanning messages to the message log). To switch between output modes, prime the equipment and press the "b" (mode) key. If MFD output mode is selected, but there are no MFD slots available when a scan starts, the Warrant Scanner will automatically switch to Non-MFD output mode.

Pilots will consider use of this scanner as hostile, and so their response may be hostile as well, particularly when not in the main station aegis.

Once you start a scan on a target, if you are forced to target another ship before the scan is completed, when you re-target the first ship the scan will automatically restart.

Further controls for the Warrant Scanner can be found in Library Config. The Warrant Scanner can be set to automatically scan offender and fugitive targets, or all targets. When the scanner is in automatic scan mode, scans will only start when the target is within 15km range. In order for the scan to detect offender or fugitive status, the Scanner Targeting Enhancement must be installed and operational, and weapons must be enabled. Non-combatant targets will not be scanned automatically when your ship's weapons are turned off.

Pilots will consider use of this scanner as hostile, and so their response may be hostile as well, particularly when not in the main station aegis.

Warrant Scanner Availability

Techlevel: 7
Price: 2570₢. 

Paying For Fines

While bounties will not degrade over time, it is still possible to remove those fines from your record by paying a requisite fine. Fines can be paid in one of two places: the main stations of the system where the fine was committed, or at the GalCop HQ system in each sector. See below for the locations of GalCop HQ. You can only pay fines collected in other sectors at the GalCop HQ system in your current sector. If you choose to pay your fine at GalCop HQ, a 10% fine processing charge will be added to the total amount.

The amount of fine you pay will be based on the amount of bounty, the type of system where the offence was committed, and the amount of time since the offence was committed.

The calculation is:

• For Anarchy, Feudal, Democracy and Corporate States

 100 * (Bounty Amount - (days since offence * severity degrade rate))

• For other government types

 50 * (Bounty Amount - (days since offence * severity degrade rate))

Example 1: A bounty of 30 (severity 1), collected in Lave (a Dictatorship), 15 days ago:

 Fine amount = 50 * (30 - (15 * 0.8))	= 900₢

Example 2: A bounty of 75 (severity 3), collected in Qube (a Corporate State), 90 days ago:

 Fine amount = 100 * (75 - (90 * 0.1))	= 6600₢

The longer you leave the payment, the more the fine will reduce, but the more likely it is you will be discovered.

Depending on the severity of your offence, there will also be a delay before you will be able to pay. The following table lists the delay periods for each severity level, and how fast the fine will degrade over time:

Level	Delay period	Degrade rate
Severity 1	1 day	0.8₢ per day
Severity 2	10 days	0.5₢ per day
Severity 3	30 days	0.1₢ per day

Special note: If a police vessel flags your ship to pay fines upon docking, the fine you pay will be the full amount and will not be reduced by a degrading component. This will only happen if your bounty is small, however. If you have a large bounty, police ships are more likely to attack you.

GalCop HQ systems

Sector	Planet
1	Lave (ID 7, TL 5, Dictatorship)
2	Diti (ID 33, TL 9, Democracy)
3	Rigebi (ID 26, TL 12, Corporate State)
4	Beesed (ID 49, TL 9, Multi-Government)
5	Bisoge (ID 102, TL 12, Corporate State)
6	Celaan (ID 85, TL 11, Corporate State)
7	Ceraxete (ID 202, TL 6, Dictatorship)
8	Maarabi (ID 184, TL 5, Multi-Government)

Appeals process

In the event that you believe a bounty has been incorrectly applied to you, it is possible to submit an appeal against the crime. While viewing the details of the crime from the GalCop Security Office screen, you can select the "Submit appeal against fine" option. This will ask you to confirm that an appeal be lodged. There is a cost involved in the appeal, and it may take quite some time to have the appeal processed, depending on how far away from the GalCop HQ system you are. The results of any appeals will be shown to you when you next dock at a GalCop station.

You can only lodge an appeal against a severity 1 crime up to 10 days after the event, 5 days for a severity 2 crime. Severity 3 crimes cannot be appealed against.

Tweaking ("Settings")

Tweaking ("Values")

Options

The following flags are available in Library Config for the Bounty System:

• Sev 1 bounty transfer: When true, severity 1 bounties can be discovered up to 5 LY from point of origin. When false, severity 1 bounties are not transferable
• Bounty payments deferred: When true, bounty payments are deferred until collected from Sec Offices. When false, bounties are paid immediately.

The following values are available in Library Config:

• Warrant scanner mode: Scanner mode - 0 = manual scan, 1 = automatic scan (offenders only), 2 = automatic scan (all ships)
• Deferred bounty range: Bounty collection range - 0 = local system only, 1 = 7LY range, 2 = 25LY range, 3 = Whole chart

Download

Download BountySystem.oxz v0.16 (downloaded 2617 times).
Download BountySystem.zip v0.16 (extract OXP folder to AddOns)

License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 4.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/

Shield image from https://www.iconfinder.com/icons/175318/shield_icon#size=512
Gavel image from http://www.freepik.com and http://www.flaticon.com, licensed by CC BY 3.0

Special thanks to Wildeblood for all his suggestions and input. Hopefully this OXP will restore something of his "lost" Criminal Record OXP! And yes, I have backups!
Thanks also to rustem, Cody, smivs, Day, Imaginos, and UK_Eliter for all their encouragement and input.
Special thanks to Milo for the performance improvements code, updates to the NPC scan function, and for implementing the "no-repeat-bounty" code.

Version History

0.16

• Changes to player score (ie kill count) are no longer deferred with bounty payments.
• Changed deferred bounty payments default to false.

0.15

• Fixed bug in Library Config validation script.
• Added options to Library Config for deferred bounty controls.
• Normal ship bounties and score increases are now stored, to be claimed from Security Office at GalCop Stations.
• Updated GalCop logo image.

0.14

• Method of determining when player's bounty is being fully reset from an OXP has been tweaked to be more accurate.

0.13

• Stopped switching NPC's active target to prevent possible conflicts in the AI routines.
• Added the Warrant Scanner MFD to HUD Selector.

0.12

• Reduced the delay period for severity 3 offences to 30 days, and severity 2 offences to 10 days.
• All defined offence types should now be passed through to the logging routine.

0.11

• Scanner was auto-scanning in manual scan mode.
• Bug fixes.

0.10

• Additional code changes for NPC scanning and interfacing with Broadcast Comms MFD, provided by Milo.

0.9

• Date applied to any offences is the date of the first offence (was previously the date the player left the system).
• Bug fixes for appeal processing.

0.8

• Warrant Scanner in auto-scan mode will now open MFD even if target is out of range.
• Performance improvements for the scanning process.
• If player is scanned in a system and bounties uncovered, and they are forced to deal with those bounties at the station, subsequent scans will not reapply bounty.
• Code refactoring.

0.7

• Fixed issue where missile attacks from the player would not ever be considered for possible illegality.

0.6

• Fixed issue with repairing a damaged passive-mode Warrant scanner.
• Fixed error when attempting to change the configuration of the Warrant scanner.
• Tweaked some descriptions in the equipment.plist file.
• Renamed some variables to prevent possible OXP conflicts.

0.5

• Changing the mode of the Warrant Scanner via Library to an automatic scan will remove the primable equipment.

0.4.4

• Warrant Scanner will switch back from non-MFD mode if an MFD slot becomes available.
• An update to the Most Wanted list will now be requested whenever the Most Wanted list is displayed.

0.4.3

• Improved compatibility with Fuel Injection Cruise Control OXP.

0.4.2

• When a scanned ship goes through a wormhole and has their bounty reset, you can now rescan the ship in the destination system to re-reveal their bounty.
• Corrected misspelled variable "galaxyNumber".
• General source code spelling corrections.

0.4.1

• Added the source ship which has performed a scan as a parameter into the $uncoverBounties function.

0.4.0

• The Warrant Scanner will now automatically continue scanning a ship that has only been partly scanned.
• The Warrant Scanner can now be set to automatically scan a ship as soon as it's targeted (controlled via Library).
• Eliminated need to keep array of scanned ships.
• Option to set course to a particular destination will be suppressed if that destination is on the player's currently plotted path.

0.3.4

• When setting a course to a target system, F7 screen will now display the new destination.
• Bug fixing Most Wanted interfaces.

0.3.3

• Added protection against NPC scan invalid conditions.
• Further tweaks to the Most Wanted interfaces.

0.3.2

• More improvements to the Most Wanted interfaces.
• Corrections to descriptions.plist.

0.3.1

• Further code changes to handle integration with GalCop Most Wanted OXP.
• Fixed issue where using an escape was still clearing any bounty.
• Bug fixes.
• Code refactoring.

0.3.0

• Added an appeals process, so the player can submit a request for minor (sev 1 or 2) crimes to be discarded.
• Further code changes to handle future OXP integration.
• Improvements to text layout of menu options containing distance and # jumps.
• Added the severity level to the fine details page.
• Removed debug message.

0.2.0

• Added number of jumps to various mission screens.
• Code changes to handle future OXP integration.
• Scans performed by police or bounty hunters will be passed on to all ships in range that have the same class, to prevent spamming.
• Cleaned up overlay image.
• Converted offence dates to real dates (eg "25 Jan 3145");
• Security office now available on all GalCop-aligned stations, but is called the "Security Kiosk". No payments can be paid there.
• Updated license.

0.1.14

• Added extra info to readme.txt
• Removed hard-coded scanner range value.
• Bug fixes.

0.1.13

• Better handling of situation where an OXP resets bounty to zero.
• Better handling of "seen by police" bounty changes.
• Fixed name reference bug when monkey patching NPC ships.

0.1.12

• Paying fines on transferred bounties was removing the original bounty, not just the transferred one.
• Better integration with the ANA.
• Police and bounty hunters may now decide not to perform a scan.

0.1.11

• Severity 1 crimes were being added multiple times if scanned by more than 1 police/bounty hunter.

0.1.10

• Medical ships are now excluded from getting a hidden bounty.
• Fixed issue with HUD not becoming visible again when launching while viewing the GalCop security office screens.

0.1.9

• Fixed issue where player destination was getting reset when a chart screen is exited by pressing a function key, rather than via the "Exit" command.
• Fixed Javascript error when player ship is destroyed.

0.1.8

• Fixed a minor issue where some bogus data could sometimes be captured and then acted on. It should now be dropped.

0.1.7

• Fixed Javascript bug "itm is not defined".

0.1.6

• Ships that have had bounties revealed will have their bounty reset when exiting a wormhole in another system, same as the player.
• Added Ship Dock Control integration code, so hidden bounties will be kept after docking and reapplied on launching.
• Added some protection against OXP's adding items to the possible offence list, and then the OXP is subsequently removed.
• Hopefully fixed issue with timers being garbage collected when still running.
• Simplified the data storage method for performance improvements.
• Changed "==" comparisons to "===" for performance improvements.

0.1.5

• Fixed error where same offence can be discovered multiple times for the player.

0.1.4

• Added code to make use of enhanced F7 screen features in Oolite 1.83/4.

0.1.3

• Removed some debug messages.

0.1.2

• Added a console message confirmation whenever the course is set to a destination.
• Refined the process of adding "attacked police/innocent" ships. Hopefully accidental hits won't be added to the run-sheet any more.

0.1.1

• Bounties collected in Interstellar space will no longer be added to your overall bounty.

0.1.0

• Initial release.

Links

• Law
• Bounty Hunter

Other OXPs

• Anarchies also affects the bounty system in a number of ways (more enduring bounties, amnesties etc)
• Bounty Cleaner OXP - introduces a fine-paying screen (2015)
• Bounty Informer OXP - bounty information on the viewscreen
• Bounty Scanner - older version of Bounty Informer (2008) - but just the scanner, not the tweaks to the bounty system.
• BountyStatus OXP - gives your bounty status on your F5F5 screen: an early oxp (2011) - this idea has been incorporated into more recent oxps (eg Useful MFDs & Vimana-X HUD).
• Convoy leaders without bounty labels
• GalCop's Most Wanted licenses Bounty Hunters and introduces both GalCop Security Offices to orbital stations and warrant scanning equipment
• Life in the Frontier - allows paying bounties at the GalCop precinct at a station.
• Pirate ID Cleaner clears your legal status on entering pirate systems

Quick Facts

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Version	Released	License	Features	Category	Author(s)	Feedback
0.16	2024-10-14	CC BY-NC-SA 3.0	Bounty changes	Mechanics OXPs	phkb	Oolite BB

Gameplay and Balance indicator