I understand that having a crime and punushment system can be good for the game, but I dont think the current system makes sense. Here's why I think this…
Background:
I just spent 4 hours fighting off Thargoids at an under attack port. Flew with some great CMDR's and had a blast. Accumilated about 350mil of combat bonds, my first proper interceptor combat and was feeling great. I got a little cocky and didnt dock to repair in time, dying on the pad… but i wasnt fussed, 4th rebuy of the night just get me back up in the air so I dont miss out on the 4 cyclops we'd been working on. In the essence of speed I didnt notice my spawn location had changed to… a detention ship?!
Somehow, i'd got a 10k bounty? Literally not a clue how and never saw another CMDR ship appear as red. Only thing I can think of is a little mid air love tap as me and another CMDR flew through a caustic cloud unavoidably, no ones fault and we were both fine. I guess a gauss shot must have gone wide and tagged someone behind my target or something, whatever I'm not too bothered at this point. 10k is nothing. But now I'm 15 jumps away from where i was (ship not kitted out for long jumps) so thats a massive pain… but its late so I decided to go cash in and log off.
I jump to the next populated system and head to a port, but as I'm a blind idiot and try and land on the wrong pad because I cant read… ok… 400 credit fine for blocking a pad… sure I'll just pay that no biggie. Except whatever gave me that 10k bounty also gave me 1 notoriety? New mechanic to me so i google and apparently I have to wait 2 hours of in game time before i can pay off my 400cr fine in order to cash in my 350+ million combat bonds.
Like, i get it, i blocked a pad my bad ill pay up. If i tagged a player or ax pilot my bad I'll pay up. But I've been fighting in a WARZONE defending human space and there is no kind of leniency for accidents at all? It just doesnt make any sense. Why do i have to wait 2 hours of in game time for my notoriety to fall off (which i shouldnt even have in the first place), yet i can instantly rebuy my fully engineered krait, respawn at the small port thats under attack and go and kill the same interceptor that just took me out? How can both those things be true and this still make sense?
I'm sorry this has kind of turned into a rant. But i have 500mil credits, thats the most I've ever had and I just made 350mil in one day so I was hyped… now I'm just frustrated by this bs I'm having to deal with without even knowing why. What does everyone else think to this? Out of all the things I've seen in this game so far, this is the system I'd like an overhaul of the most
TL:DR
Bounties, fines and notoriety make no sense given how the rest of the game works. Accidentally tagging a friendly ship in the middle of a thargoid warzone should have some bounty leniency and not incur standard murder penalties… for me and my own opinion, everytime I've had to deal with the justice system in this game its killed my enjoyment and immersion.
PS. To all those CMDR's who fought along side me at Spedding Terminal, it was an honour o7
Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/106a2j4/help_me_understand_bounties_and_fines/