EVE General Discussion

If kill rights have an expiration date, they will be pointless. Kill rights should function just like the bounty system. It only expires when the same value has been destroyed.

Example:
I kill some guys ship that is total in value of 100m ISK. He has kill rights on me until him or someone he sells the kill right to has inflicted 100m ISK in damages to me.

An eye for an eye if you will.

tl;dr: the new bounty system gives the ability to mark any hisec miner for death by putting only a 20 mil ISK bounty on their head. Thoughts?

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So, the new bounty system offers partial bounty payouts on ship kills, equal to 10% of the ISK lost by the target. This payout decreases the total value of the bounty. So, let's look at some numbers:

A gank-fit Catalyst (neutron blasters, prop/point, and damage) costs about 2-3 mil ISK. Let's call it 2.5 mil ISK.

A Hulk hull is hovering at just below 200 mil ISK. Let's toss the fittings in and call that a straight 200 mil. The payout for killing one of these? 200/10 = 20 mil ISK. In Catalysts? 20/2.5 = 8. So, as long as the gankers use fewer than 8 Catalysts, they will be making money.

Other "profitable ganking" margins in the same vein:

• Mackinaw (~190 mil) = 7 Catalysts; think that's enough to break a Mack's tank?
• Covetor (~35 mil) = ~2 Catalysts
• Retriever (~25 mil) = 1 Catalyst

You can replace the Catalyst with a Thrasher if you like artillery alpha more (for 0.9 and 1.0 sec ganking). The payout for each of these is more than enough to fund and even profit off of suicide ganking, even after the mining buff.

The question, of course, is "who would put bounties on miners?" Other miners (who wish to not be ganked themselves, and try to get more attention on others), trolls with far too much money to spend, and other people who wish to see hisec mining become a more "active" activity (James 315?). It also makes Hulkageddon far, far easier to distribute rewards for (I'm looking at you, Goonswarm).

As icing on the cake, bounties can be placed not only on individual miners, but on mining corps, too -- which leads to an indirect bounty on all members.

So... is this a welcome change? How do you think it will affect hisec? Is it a "stealth nerf" to mining? Will this mark the return of Hulkageddon Forever?

Discuss.

Edit: Apparently I fail at reading. The bounties devblog clearly states 20%, not 10%, as the intended payout rate. So, in light of that, some revised figures for how many destroyers a gank can pay for:

• Hulk (~200 mil) = 16 destroyers
• Mackinaw (~190 mil) = 14 destroyers
• Covetor (~35 mil) = 4 destroyers
• Retriever (~25 mil) = 2 destroyers

Thanks go to Shederov Blood for pointing this out. Shederov, I didn't reply to your mail beause I have better things to do with 1 mil than pay your CSPA charge.