Bounties

Accurate as of v1.22.0 (July 2026).

The bounty system has two sides, and they pay out differently:

• Player bounties — posted by captains on each other — pay automatically the moment the target is defeated. No travel required.
• Faction bounties — issued by the Federation and the Pirate Syndicate on troublemakers — are two-step: the kill creates a claim, and you redeem it in person at the issuing faction’s registry.

Player Bounties

Posting a Bounty

Bounties are posted at the bounty office at either Starport:

• Federation Bounty Registry — at the Federation Starport
• Bounty Hunter Registry — at the pirate Starport

That’s the only place — taverns don’t handle bounties. And mind the pirate naming trap: at the pirate Starport, the place called “The Bounty Board” is the missions office, not the bounty office.

Rules:

• Minimum bounty: 500 cr
• Maximum per posting: 100,000 cr
• Total cost: 110% of the bounty amount, charged upfront from your wallet
• You cannot post a bounty on yourself
• One active bounty per poster per target — but several captains can each stack a bounty on the same target
• Bounties expire after 7 days if uncollected, and expired bounties are forfeit — nothing is refunded

A 10,000 cr bounty costs 11,000 cr total.

Posting is quiet — there’s no feed announcement. The target finds out from the bounty board or their own Ship screen.

Collecting a Player Bounty

Automatic. Defeat the target in PvP combat and every active player bounty on their head pays straight into your wallet as part of the fight — the combat recap shows the payout. No claim to file, no office to visit. If several captains stacked bounties on the same target, one kill collects them all.

You cannot collect a bounty you posted yourself. Your own posting is skipped and stays active until someone else collects it or it expires.

Faction Bounties

Kill a faction’s ships and that faction puts a price on your head:

• Destroying Federation patrols → a Federation bounty on you
• Destroying pirate ships → a Pirate Syndicate bounty on you
• Attacking ports in Federation territory also grows your Federation bounty — win or lose

Each faction maintains one running bounty on you. It grows with every offense — scaling with your kill count against that faction and the tier of the ship you destroyed — up to a cap of 500,000 cr per faction. Faction bounties never expire: the only exits are being hunted down, arrested at the dock, or paying it off yourself. You can carry a Federation and a Syndicate bounty at the same time.

Collecting a Faction Bounty

This is the two-step flow:

1. Defeat the wanted player in PvP combat. The kill converts the faction bounty into a claim in your name.
2. Redeem the claim at the issuing faction’s registry — the Federation Bounty Registry at the Federation Starport for Federation claims, the Bounty Hunter Registry at the pirate haven for Syndicate claims. Your ship must physically be in that Starport’s sector.

Claims never expire, so you can bank up kills and redeem them later. Open the wrong faction’s office and your claims show dimmed under “Other Claims” as a reminder of where to go.

Wanted Status

Any active faction bounty makes you WANTED — the indicator appears on Ship → Stats, one entry per faction bounty on your head.

Consequences:

• Auto-arrest at the dock. Docking at a Starport of the faction that wants you triggers arrest: the full bounty amount is seized from your wallet, the record is cleared, and you can dock on your next attempt. Bank credits are untouchable — bank your credits before risky docking and arrest can’t take a thing.
• Can’t afford it? Docking denied. If your wallet can’t cover the bounty, you’re refused entry instead — nothing is seized, but you stay locked out of that faction’s Starport until the bounty is dealt with.
• Hostiles on sight. Ships of the faction that wants you turn aggressive — Federation patrols (or pirates, for a Syndicate bounty) attack you on movement with no chance to avoid the fight.

Paying it off: clear your own head voluntarily at the issuing faction’s registry, for the full bounty amount from your wallet. It’s the same price as arrest — the difference is choosing when and where.

Player-posted bounties on you do not trigger arrest or NPC aggression. That pressure comes only from faction bounties.

The Bounty Board

The board at either bounty office shows:

• Player bounties — active contracts sorted by payout, with time remaining
• Faction wanted lists — the Federation Wanted List and the Pirate Syndicate Hit List
• Your uncollected claims — kills waiting to be redeemed (dimmed if this isn’t the right office)
• Your own exposure — everything currently on your head, summed prominently, with a Pay Off button

Bounty actions — posting, collecting, paying off — cost no turns.

Leaderboards

Two boards in the Feed tab’s leaderboards track the criminal economy:

• Most Wanted — captains ranked by the sum of active bounties currently on their head
• Bounty Hunters — captains ranked by bounty credits earned

Strategic Notes

As a planet owner: if your Trading Post is ever robbed, the feed broadcasts the thief’s name to the galaxy — prime material for a bounty posting.

As a bounty hunter: faction bounty announcements in the feed include the target’s last-seen sector, and the board shows it too. Player bounties pay at the kill; faction claims pay at the registry — plan your route to end at the right office. And note that only winning as the attacker in solo PvP collects: bring a fleet and the bounty goes unclaimed.

As a target: bank first, always — an empty wallet turns arrest into a mere docking denial. Killing other players does nothing for the bounty on your own head; it stays until it’s collected, paid off, or (player bounties only) expires after 7 days. Staying in Federation space prevents PvP, but it won’t protect you from Federation patrols or dock arrest if the Federation is the faction that wants you.