2018-12-21 Bounties, System Gen, Mating

[Haxus]

Bounties on Web
It would be nice if bounties were shown on the avatar page on the web site.

The following information about bounties is now shown on the avatar web page.

• All current bounties.
  
• Number of bounties collected.
  
• Amount of cronos collected from bounties.
  
• Number of bounties collected on you.
  
• Amount of cronos collected from bounties on you.
  

The amounts collected are currently zero for everyone. That information was not tracked prior to this update.

Bounty Hunter Jobs
Bounty hunter jobs are extremely rare and difficult to acquire. Does anyone know how it works?

Bounty hunter jobs were eliminated in favor of the following system:

• The head you drop when you die is tagged with your highest current bounty, if you have one.
  • Multiple heads can be tagged with the same bounty.
    
  • A head with a bounty shows that information on its item name and in its description.
    
• A head with a bounty is redeemed using the gear window.
  • If the bounty on the head is still active on the avatar, you will receive the money and a notification. The bounty is removed from the head.
    
  • If the bounty on the head is no longer active on the avatar, you receive notification but no money. The bounty is removed from the head.
    
  • If the avatar cannot be located, you receive no notification. The bounty is not removed from the head. You must try again later.
    
• You cannot redeem a bounty from your own head.
  

Solar System Generation
The suns and worlds in a solar system sometimes change when the system is regenerated. Resources and their qualities change.

The fix for this is imperfect, without a lot more work. It was intended to accompany a database reset but the solution was slightly better than the current condition.

• Solar system contents in sectors generated after this update will no longer change when regenerated.
  
• Systems in sectors that currently exist could change one last time, if their sector gets regenerated.
  

Commander Submenu Items
Submenu items on the view buttons in Hazeron Commander are missing.

Commander view button submenus are now accessible using the tiny '>' widget at the top right of the buttons.

Gear Submenu Items
Maybe to be consistent with other buttons, the Gear button to also be as a sub-button of itself? not too important, just a note

Gear button now appears as a submenu button of the Gear button.

Mating
The procedure for mating is strange and weird. It is impossible to mate with a passenger, a town person, or an indigenous person.

Mating was reworked as follows:

• A new body pose was added to become receptive to mating; crouching no longer works.
  • You must be a naked adult creature to assume the mating pose.
    
  • Default binding is Shift+X.
    
  • The body lies on its back in the mating pose. Sorry dogs; its missionary or nothing.
    
  • Male or female sentient creatures can initiate the mating pose. Animals do not mate.
    
• Mount a receptive sentient to mate, using the E key.
  • Both participants must be fully grown adults.
    
  • They must be of opposite gender.
    
  • They must be naked.
    
  • They must be conscious and alive.
    
  • If the couple has compatible DNA and the female is not already pregnant, she is impregnated.
    
• To mate with crew or passengers, assume the mating pose and order them to mount you. You no longer have to undress them; they will undress while mating.
  
• To mate with NPCs in general, initiate a conversation by saying hello. Assume the mating pose and accept their response.
  

Blind Animals
Wild animals are blind inside spacecraft and buildings. They have no logic to find their way around. This makes monster encounters aboard spacecraft a sad task of simply dispatching the pathetic things.

Wild animals can now see, hear, and smell aboard spacecraft and inside buildings. They will seek food and prey and they will attack threats, just like in the wilderness. They cannot operate turbo lifts nor can they open locked doors or manual doors. Automatic doors will open for them. A flying animal might get lucky and fly up or down through a hatch if it was open.

Captured Vehicles
Vehicles do not switch to the conquering empire. So they count as enemy units on the planet, preventing military HQ construction.

All existing cities, new vehicles and new spacecraft now change empire when a world is captured. A world is captured when it is claimed and when a military HQ is built.

[Haxus]

I was left with some questions.

Should there be a way to prevent someone from collecting a bounty on their own head, using one of their alts? This would only stop people who do not have two accounts, which is most of them. Otherwise, a bounty is pretty easy to collect on yourself.

Should you have to go to a particular building to collect bounties? There is no specific bounty hunter building.

[Phenoix12]

Should you have to go to a particular building to collect bounties? There is no specific bounty hunter building.

Would be interesting if you had to travel to the empire that posted the bounty to get the reward. Though that would be a hassle if the empire that did it is in a different galaxy.

Another idea is you could rework one or two of the pirate factions from being pirates to being a sort of bounty hunter organizations that you can go find their outposts or ships and hail them to collect bounties.

The third option is to of course make a special 'Bounty Hunter Guild' Building for cities to turn bounties in at. Maybe add a little more functionality to it than just turning in boutnies like allowing you to hire OP NPC body guards to follow you for exorbitant amounts of weekly cronos.

[Haxus]

I have an elaborate to-do item about implementing guilds. It did seem like an appropriate place for redeeming bounties. I guess it can wait until then.

Guilds are not on the "must do before Steam release" list.

[Minty]

I don't think there would ever be a way to stop people from having their friends collect their bounties, even if you stopped their alts. Maybe stop alts on the same account as well as any players in the same empire? / players in empires directly allied with you?

I'm not sure if bounties would only ever come from enemy empires, though that would be how I *think* it would go.

[Vectorus]

I have not followed the discussion perfectly, but is there a way to clear out bad scan data and replace it with new? Would new scans of previously scanned-and-rerolled sytems stick?

This would seem to be an important corollary.

[Haxus]

Here's a few more I forgot to list.

Ship Transition Deletion
Apparently if you are not in a room void when the ship transitions, you are deleted XD

I think this is fixed. Needs testing.

Commander Blueprint Exchange
There is no way to display the Building Blueprint Exchange in the Commander.

This was fixed with the addition of the submenu items.

Handcraft Submenu
Handcraft should get a sub button on the gear

Handcraft button is now a submenu item of the Gear button.

Ship Aboard Ship
A ship parked aboard another ship used to say that it was parked aboard, now it says it's on the ground

Ship parked aboard another ship now says so in location information.

[AnrDaemon]

I would suggest removing bounty until there's value attached to the loss.
When there IS a value, then pay the bounty hunter a share of the lost value from the bounty pool.
Like, you have a bounty of $5 on your head. You get killed and lose $3 in value. The killer get $2 (66% of loss value) paid from the bounty pool. You resurrect at your usual location, your bounty pool is now $3.

Any mechanic not associated with actual loss value would just be a scam attractor.

[Haxus]

Bounties are purchased at the time they are placed on someone. The value is attached to the avatar at that time.

The head carries a token of the current highest bounty, at the time the head is dropped. Each bounty can only be collected once.

That seems pretty straight forward. I did not understand the 66% bounty pool thing, sounded complicated.

[Haxus]

Other than perhaps providing a way to transfer funds across the Sigma discontinuity, I don't see how it could be scammed.

It might be nice if the player could not collect the bounty on an avatar using an alt. There are many ways to get around any measures that might be put in place to prevent that.

The bounty is a price paid to have someone killed. If they do it with an alt, what's the diff? They still got killed. There is no way to get a head from someone without them dying, one way or another.