so, i got a 200 credit bounty for friendly fire...

[AndyB]

I posted this on the FD forums but thought i'd post here as well in case you missed it as the thread sank like a stone, the original is here:

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthrea ... ost1409240

yes i know what you're thinking oh bloomin heck not another 'i lost my ship because of a measly 200 credit bounty' thread, well i'm sorry to disappoint you but in fact its quite the opposite.

here is my little story.

so there was I minding my own business in my type 7 flying brick just approaching into safe disengage range of a station with 212 tonnes of animal meat on board when i get interdicted, not one to run from a fight i zeroed the throttle and submitted.

it's a wanted Cobra. before you can say 'time to run' he opens up on me. no problem thinks me, i have 2 buff gimbled beams and 2 racks full of heat seekers, i'll take him out no problem.

so we dance for a little while, he takes my shields and i return the favor and take half his hull as well when i see 3 new blips on the radar - its the cops.

these guys must have been on their way home from a new years party or something as they are all over the place. not to worry, not much left to do, i'll just kill the cobra and bug out - the cops wont be a problem i'm sure.

oh how wrong i was, just as i get the kill shot in and collect an 18 k bounty on the miscreant my beams go wild and brush the shields of one of the coppers.

they turn red and turn to attack, i turn chicken and get out of there as fast as my FSD will take me!

now i'm stuck, the type 7 is too big for an outpost so i can't pay my bounty the easy way and i'm deep in federation space with no independent systems in easy reach; what to do, oh what will i do?

sod it says I, I throw caution to the wind and head back towards to Coriolis starport i was about to dock at. i have nearly 30 million in the bank so an 800k rebuy and 200k worth of cargo is only going to set me back about an hour if i don't make it.

i line up with the station in SC making sure i'm between it and the planet and when the time is right i drop out, but instead of turning towards the station i go the other way to gain some distance.

circling around to the station entrance side i line up and start preparing. i drop 2 heat sinks so i'm cold as ice and throttle up, all the while praying i can get through the slot without being scanned. closer and closer, i'm now within range so i request docking and hit silent running.

a system authority vessel is closing in on the radar so at 5km out i hit boost, this baby is starting to get a bit hot! i enter the docking tunnel at 250 kph and drop the landing gear - brake brake brake! CLANG, i bounce off the docking tunnel, lose another 7% hull in my rush to get out of line of sight and screech to a stop just short of the back wall.

my hands are shaking, i'm in a cold sweat, but i made it! i turn around keeping it low and cruise back to my pad, hardly able to control the ship as my reflexes turn to jelly. i set down and pay the fine, my adventure at an end.

WHAT A RUSH!

its the most fun i've had in the last 4 hours in game, i loved it and wouldn't want to see anything changed. sure it was a risk, but what's life without a little adventure every now and again?

so to the dev's i say this: keep friendly fire exactly as it is, a fine would be boredom personified in comparison to my little adventure.

Commander Andy B piloting the flying brick signing off. may all my play sessions of 2015 be as much fun! start as you mean to go on!

[Flip]

Good story, Andy! And nicely told, too.

[Cytraxx Tharn]

Yeah... thats Elite... I think it's called "dangerous" *LOL*

But I can add a bit to that type of stories.

I was hunting pirates to complete my mission for the federation - 6 kills in 3 hours a doable but quite hard mission and most important a nice money could be made out of it for a newbie flying a close to stock Sidewinder.

Two Kills could quickly be scored and then I found two Cobras hunting a lone innocent Sidewinder. Burst Lasers locked and down into the fray. The first Cobra didn't even know what hit her. "How could that be?" *poof*
The second one tried to distract me with dropping containers full of gold
But to now avail... she had to die too!
In the meantime the Sidewinder (who was NOT a Security Vessel!) got out of range and I started to scoop in four containers full of gold. While scooping in the last container the Sidewinder I saved from certain destruction had returned and scanned me - "39860C fine for carrying illicit goods!" *eeeeek* WTF!?
Since when are normal vehicles scanning you and issueing fines? I thought only System Authority Vessels could do this.

Ok then may it be so.
I flew to a close by pirate outpost and sold my "expensively bought" gold (for only 19k Creds), payed my fine *snief* and decided to cash in the already claimed four bounties to cover my losses. *BAAAAD mistake Indy.... baaaad mistake!*

Then I returned hunting the last two missing pirates.
"Wow that's an easy finding" - I thought when I found a lone "Competent" Cobra (you remeber I'm flying a near stock Sidewinder) and I tusseled a bit with her... stripped of her shields and 40% of her armour too... she hit me in return and I managed to stay out of the range of the mines she dropped on me like snow flakes but I couldnt avoid being hit and got minor damage for around 10% armour (so 90% remained). But it was clear I would get the upper hand and a nice bounty when two System Authority Vehicles dropped out of FSD.
"Ah help!" I thought... *BAAAAD mistake Indy.... baaaad mistake!*
"Crime detected" was all I could read when my shields were shot down in two seconds and my armour was reduced to 38% in one sweep. WTF?!
I took my legs under my arms (don't know if that's the figure of speech in English too) and managed a really close escape with all energy stuffed in my engines and thrusting away and away until I could engage FSD.
I checked my status - clean, no fines, no bounty and those fu..ing Police vessels shot at me instead of shooting the "wanted" Cobra!
I let out a loud scream when I recognized all my four kills from befor the "gold event" must have erased too when I claimed my bounties at the outpost because I again had to kill 6 pirates to complete my mission.

It ended at a really close win in the end though for nearly two hours no pirates showed up after this and I even killed three that delivered bounty but no count on my mission (how could that be?). So in the end I had to kill 13(!) Pirates instead of 6 to complete the mission.
Ok I earned round about 100k of Credits net with this one (bounties and mission pay-out) even with having to pay a close to 40k fine from the scan of this shitty sidewinder in deepspace.

And now I'm hesitating to sell my herioc Sidewinder to buy me a Viper from all the money I earned...

[AndyB]

Good story, Andy! And nicely told, too.

Thanks, i fancy myself a bit of a writer - preferably the bit that knows punctuation a lot better than me :p

many won't be aware of this unless they've been around since the kickstarter but buried deep within the fan creations forum of the FD site is about 12,000 words of a book i started writing, its been described as a fast paced page turner that does for punctuation what 20 pints on a saturday night does for the walk home - it's all over the place!

i had to give it up in the end though as it started to consume me, i was getting 2-3 hours sleep a night as i had a head full of plot lines, it was getting bad for my mental health.

if you fancy a read its called 'Space Storm' - should be easy enough to find in a search by thread title.

Edit: and here it is: https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthrea ... pace+Storm

[AndyB]

another cool story losing your mission progress like that is a weird one, not sure if that's a bug or not. if you can reproduce it in the new year it would be worth reporting, i wouldn't bother yet though as FD have a habit of closing all tickets when a new patch comes out so it will get lost in the next patch cycle.

[Roger Wilco Jr]

I'm glad you had fun, but the unreasonableness (that appears to be a word) of the system ruins the fun for me. You shouldn't get a bounty unless you do something that deserves the possible punishment of being killed (murder, attempted murder, etc) - you should get a fine. That also goes for some of this crazy station killing you for trespassing or whatever.

Anyway, just make sure to take a pot shot at any SA vessels whenever you get a chance.

[AndyB]

I'm glad you had fun, but the unreasonableness (that appears to be a word) of the system ruins the fun for me. You shouldn't get a bounty unless you do something that deserves the possible punishment of being killed (murder, attempted murder, etc) - you should get a fine. That also goes for some of this crazy station killing you for trespassing or whatever.

Anyway, just make sure to take a pot shot at any SA vessels whenever you get a chance.

i can see where you are coming from but in real life if i shot you in the chest it would be attempted murder regardless of the fact you were wearing body armor. its the same with friendly fire, when you shoot you are not targeted on the vessel you hit so you have no idea of the state of its shields or if it is at 1% hull. depending on the weapon and the condition of the victim that one shot could kill and is therefore treated as attempted murder.

anyway, i have now submitted this story to FD for inclusion in the news letter - fingers crossed!

[Skipp]

I've noticed that having a turreted weapon really "helps" getting you those fines that come out of friendly fire.

I fly a Viper that's decently upgraded and I took 1 turret with me. It keeps shooting all the time, not much damage but it's constant. If you leave it by default - it WILL shoot nearby ships - even the police.

What you have to do is check your right side menu, and set the turret to attack "Target only". That way you'll never shoot the police by mistake. Of course - you still need to watch out for your own projectiles.

However - before I realized this, and when I shot the cops a few times, they never shot back at me nor they became hostile on my map. I was just given a fine of 200-400 credits and they still helped me kill a pirate. Although - very often, when they helped, I didn't get the bounty for the kill.

[Flip]

What you have to do is check your right side menu, and set the turret to attack "Target only". That way you'll never shoot the police by mistake. Of course - you still need to watch out for your own projectiles.

Are you talking about defense turrets or turreted weapons? Because I only use a defense turret and the only related thing I have in the right panel is "turret weapon mode: forward fire", which cannot be changed.

If you're talking about turreted weapons, can you please describe the difference with an equivalent gimbaled weapon? (I never used a turreted weapon and I'm not sure if I want or not.) Cheers!

[Skipp]

It's weapons. Take a look at the screenshots below. And like I said - they do less damage, but they pewpew constantly even when the enemy is not in your FoV or while you're turning around.