EDCombat

This page contains information related to various combat topics in Elite: Dangerous.

Bounty Hunting

Q&A

How can I get a bounty awarded to me?

You must see the bounty before you kill the other ship.

How do I collect a bounty claim?

Go to a station under the control of the jurisdiction that issued the bounty. Collect the bounty claim in the "Contacts" section of the Station Services menu.

Is there a pattern to what bounties a kill warrant scanner will reveal? For instance, will the bounties be from neighbouring systems? Or are those bounties issued by completely random systems that I then have to tediously find and travel to in order to collect my bounty claims?

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How can I discard a bounty claim if I don't intend to collect it (e.g. because it's a small amount of credits in a far away system)?

Self-destructing (or getting killed in any other way) is the only way that I know of.

HOWTO

An excellent video that explains everything is Dejan Kober's beginner tutorial part 6. Here is what I took away from watching it:

• Basically you can do bounty hunting everywhere where you find a wanted ship, but it's easiest around resource extraction sites (RES) because there a lot of wanted ships will spawn so your credits-per-hour rate will increase dramatically.
• RES can be found almost everywhere, but the highest chance of getting a good spot is if you search with the following pattern
  • First, find a system whose primary economy is extraction. Industrial and refinery systems may also work but are secondary choices.
  • The lower the security in the system, the better, for two reasons:
    1. Lower security means more wanted ships will be in that system
    2. Lower security means that there are less security ships around that might get into your way when you start shooting at wanted ships, i.e. there is less risk for accidentally getting a bounty on your own head.
  • Within the system, find a planet that has rocky or metal rings (i.e. not icy) because this means there are likely RES in that ring
  • Preferrably the planet should have a station so that you can easily return to repair, rearm, refuel and collect the bounties you have earned
• Before you start shooting, you need to equip your ship. You need...
  • A kill warrant scanner (this is not required, but it will substantially increase your profits)
  • Weapons that are mounted on gimbals. Although these do less damage than weapons that are mounted fixedly, it is MUCH easier to hit targets because the gimballed weapon will hit even if the target is not directly in your weapon sights.
  • At least one energy weapon so that you can lower the target's shields
  • At least one kinetic weapon so that you can damage the target's hull once the shields are down. In practice, I have found that a kinetic weapon is not required, you can destroy the other ship with energy weapons alone, although it will take a bit longer. I found it difficult to hit an enemy ship with a kinetic weapon, which is why in the end I resorted to energy weapons only.
• Once the modules are equipped, configure the ship like this:
  • Fire group 1: Weapons. Laser weapon on primary fire button, kinetic weapon on secondary fire button
  • Fire group 2: Kill warrant scanner. Put the scanner on the secondary fire button because then, if you want to scan a target and are accidentally on fire group 1, you will trigger the kinetic weapon instead of the laser weapon. Since kinetic weapons have a short warm-up period before they actually start shooting, you will get a warning and have a chance to abort shooting, whereas with lasers the shooting starts immediately.
• So now that you are properly set up and have gone to a suitable RES, here's how to proceed:
  • Target the ship
  • As soon as the ship is reasonably in front of you, it will be passively scanned. The scan result will show the ship to be either clean or wanted. TODO: I have also seen "lawless" - what's this?
  • If the ship is clean, the current jurisdiction has issued no bounties for the pilot. If you attack the ship you commit a crime in the current jurisdiction, which results in a bounty on your own head being issued.
  • If the ship is wanted, the current jurisdiction has issued at least one bounty for the pilot. If you attack the ship you don't commit a crime in the current jurisdiction. If you destroy the ship you will get the bounty issued by the current jurisdiction.
  • Additionally, you should use the kill warrant scanner against the ship. The scan result is that you can see whether other jurisdictions have issued bounties for the pilot. This is visible only in the "Contact" tab. If you destroy the ship you will get all those extra bounties, too.
  • If the ship is clean in the current jurisdiction, but has bounties from other jurisdictions, attacking the ship is still illegal.
  • In anarchy systems there is no jurisdiction, so a ship always shows up as clean after the initial scan. You don't commit a crime even if you destroy a clean ship because there is no jurisdiction. So in anarchy systems, to get any bounty at all, you must' use the kill warrant scanner.

Interdictions

During an interdiction attempt, how do I find the escape vector if it is currently not visible on the screen?

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Combat around stations

What happens if I join a fight going on in the no-fire zone of a station and fire on the ship that is under attack?

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What happens if I am attacked in the no-fire zone of a station and fire back?

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