Bounty Hunter Guide

This article relates to an element of Star Wars Galaxies prior to the New Game Enhancements. It is no longer accurate and remains for historical purposes only.

The contents of this page has been adapted from Darein's BH Guide, posted on the Official Bounty Hunter Profession forum.

Is BH right for me?

As a bounty hunter, you will find a lot of new parts of the game that otherwise would have been left undiscovered. There are NPC bounty hunts, player bounties, and of course the underhanded special abilities and tactics that make some hunters famous.

You might remember such hunters as Greedo, Jango Fett, and Boba Fett from the movies. Players take examples from these, sometimes comparing Greedo to a newbie and the Fetts to the real master hunters. If you like any of these characters, bounty hunting might be for you - for roleplay if nothing else.

An important part to bounty hunting is using droids to locate your mark. These droids can be bought using the Bazaar terminals under the Auctions tab, or the Vendor Locations tab. You will need Probe Bots, and Seeker Droids as a high level Bounty Hunter. Probe Bots are used to Locate what planet your mark is on, and will provide you with an initial waypoint on that planet where you may find your mark. Once you travel to that planet, you will want to send out a seeker droid that will give an updated waypoint. This seeker droid will continue to update the waypoint of your mark for a short time. Eventually, if you fail to find your mark, you will need to send out another Seeker Droid. You will do this on every mission as a high level Bounty Hunter, and might find that having friends who are Artisans, Droid Engineers, Armorsmiths, and Weaponsmiths, can give you an advantage.

Most of the Bounty Hunter's job is done solo; however, you could team up with one or more Bounty Hunters to take down a mark. If you chose to team up, be sure you are teamed-up with a Bounty Hunter you trust. Whoever deathblows the target is the player who will receive the bounty reward (credits). So, hopefully you've teamed up with players you trust to distribute the bounty in equal shares to all in the party. Between running NPC bounties, running player bounties solo, or in a group, there is alot for a Bounty Hunter to be occupied with throughout the galaxy.

If you are having a lot of trouble deciding, you may want to stop by the bounty hunter's forums on the Star Wars Galaxies website.

Combat and Equipment Tips

This part of the guide assumes you have already played a combat class for at least a little while, and have made the decision to play as a Bounty Hunter.

Template, Skills and Special Abilities

Some popular Bounty Hunter templates are :

• Master Bounty Hunter, Master Rifleman, Combat Medic (Distance Healing branch)
• Master Bounty Hunter, Master Combat Medic, Pistoleer (Pistol Stances branch)
• Master Bounty Hunter, Master Pistoleer, Combat Medic (Distance Healing branch)

These are only examples, the important thing to keep in mind is that you should build your template according to what you enjoy. Some more original combination can be imagined, such as Bounty Hunter / Creature Handler. Build your template, test it, and know it.

Note: it is strongly recommended to have some healing skills in your template, especially if you're going to hunt Jedi

In combat, one of your best tactics is using the special abilities that you've earned. If you have carbines, your best damage specials are currently Leg Shot, Critical Shot, and possibly Rapid Fire. If pistols, you'll probably want to stick Stopping Shot and make them Bleed. All bounty hunters should know how to use Duelist Stance properly to maintain defense, as well as Knockdown Recovery. Know your specials well before you even think about hunting Jedi.

Weapon, Armor and Supplies

You will also want to use the proper weapon in combat. Proton Carbines, High Capacity Scatter Pistols, T21 Rifles seem to be amongst the favorites. Of course you may find some other weapon that better suits you, depending on your tactics and style. Look for a weapon with low special action cost (SAC), high speed and high damage.

Know your equipment! Learn the various weapon statistics and how they affect your ability in combat. Read statistics on armor; if you're going to hunt Jedi, you will need an armor with high resistance against Energy damage. Compare wielding a certain weapon with another on your Character Sheet to see what mods it gives you. Figure out which professions give you the right armor mods and which armor type is most important to you. You don't want to be running around with armor you are uncertified for, as it can reduce your speed and accuracy.

You can also get weapons or armor sliced by a smuggler to increase statistics, and thereby increasing overall quality. In addition to your armor, get a Personal Shield Generator (armorsmiths make these too). This will add even more to your defenses.

Take care of your equipment. If you won't be using it for a long time, store it in your bank or house where it's safe. If you are, insure it often and make sure it's repaired to a fair condition.

Also, make sure to take advantage of the food and drinks chefs make. They can boost various HAM pools, increase regeneration rates, and offer various defensive or offensive bonuses. Spices also boost your HAM. Make sure to visit a doctor for Medical Enhancements, it can make the difference between life and death, especially when fighting a Jedi.

Bring some Stim Packs with you. Stims D can heal you for about 1000 health point per use, and can be used without any specific skills provided you have a combat level of at least 60.

As a BH, droids are used in almost every BH mission you will take. In order to be able to find where your mark is, you will need Arakyd Droids as well as Seeker Droids. You can often find these droids in droid engineer shops and on the bazaar. They also come in crates.

• ARAKYD PROBES are different then Arakyd Fugitive trackers, you will need to call a probe from space with a probe control device bought from vendors - {these probes will find the planet your mark is on, while, THE SEEKER DROID searches the particular planet once you have arrived and does not planet hop**

Other droids you can use as support during your missions:

• bomb droids: single use, these droids can damage your target by exploding
• combat droids: can do some minor additional damage to your opponent, as well as creating a diversion
• medical droids: will improve the efficiency of your healing abilities

Investigation

Investigation is what a Bounty Hunter uses their specific kind of missions. Your skills in Investigation determine what type of missions you can take, how hard they are, which informants you have to talk to, and how good you are at using your tracking droids.

At novice BH, it is probably best to finish your weapon skills before you try to take on the Investigation branch. If droids are working like before, most BH's would suggest maxing out on Bounty Hunter XP (the XP for investigation). You should have enough XP for Investigation II before bothering to learn Investigation I.

At Investigation I and up, you have to take off-planet missions and use droids to track your targets. (At novice BH, missions are pretty easy, always on the same planet you prepared for it on. At investigation 1, things get more difficult and bounties may be off-planet, droids may get eaten by space slugs or crash into asteroids - wasting time and credits. At investigation 2, your skills improve to where this isn't such a problem.)

As your investigation skills and mission difficulty increase, you will need to talk to different informants who know more about your new bounties. They will give you the biological signature that you need to program into your droid so it can find the target.

A list of Bounty Hunter Terminals, Trainers, and Informants with their locations (from the bounty hunter forums) is included below.

See Bounty Hunter Mission Terminal page for terminal locations.
See Bounty Hunter Informant page for informant locations.

BH Missions (General BH missions)

The Layout of a BH Mission

Beginners:

A Bounty Hunter terminal.

Step 1 - Get a mission (you'll have to find a BH mission terminal.)

Step 2 - Talk to a SpyNets Ops at your investigation level (AKA "Informant" - at one of the locations in the list above.)

Step 3 - Find and eliminate your bounty at the given waypoint on the same planet you are on.

Advanced / Experts: Step 1 - Get a mission (BH terminals)

Once you reach advanced/expert, the best place to go for missions and signatures is Dearic on Talus by the cloning center, as both the mission terminal and the Spynet rep are standing close to each other. It is right on the edge of the already small town allowing you to get outside quickly to call down your droid from space.

Step 2 - Talk to your Informant and obtain their Bio Signature (SpyNet Ops - they'll be harder to find now.)

Step 3 - Leave the city far enough to call an Arakyd droid from orbit. Call the droid (select find or track from the droid's radial menu.)

Step 4 - The droid drops from orbit and is now called "Imperial Probot Base". Go up to it and use option 2 from your radial menu to upload the bounty's biological signature.

Step 5 - Wait for the droid to locate the target (approx. 3 minutes).

Step 6 - Go to the planet the arakyd droid found the target on. (This is not a recently updated waypoint, but left from when if found what planet the target was on.)

Step 7 - Send out a seeker droid (find or track, tracking is better if you have the skill to do it).

Currently, you can use multiple seekers to update your target waypoint by selecting the Find and Track option over and over again really quickly after releasing the first droid. When it finally registers the first droid has left, you will be unable to send more seekers until one of them fails to locate your target. I still have heard no word if this is considered an exploit or not, so use at your own risk. (More people point to the fact that tracking with seekers at master level does not consume any droids, than to this type of use, as it limits the amount of seekers a BH has to buy, in turn cutting Droid Engineer's potential income.)

Step 8 - After seeker locates the target, travel to the new waypoint and eliminate your target. (You can start traveling to the waypoint your Arakyd droid gave you, but your bounty probably moved far away while you were traveling to the planet.) You may have to send more than one seeker to pin down their location, and the targets are often moving (trying to get to a starport or something).

If, for some reason, the bounty is on the planet you are on - in other words, if you're lucky - you could potentially find the target by sending out a seeker after getting the mission and speaking with the informant (skipping the arakyd step), and not be required to call an Arakyd droid from orbit. Just realize that once you've started tracking, you can't keep sending out droids to track until the first one is done.

The Jedi Hunter (PvP bounties)

Jedi missions are the same as a BH's regular missions - but only as far as tracking your mark. Actually, even then there are a few disparities. You will have to use your wits and underhanded tactics to come out on top.

Jedi bounties can be very difficult to pull off, especially when hunting a high-level Jedi on your own. As stated earlier, you must make sure you have excellent equipment and know how to use your specials and abilities before entering combat with your bounty. Basically, you should always make sure you are prepared before fighting in PvP (player versus player).

To prepare yourself properly for a hunt and avoid newbie BH mistakes, make sure to read this whole thing.

Taking a PvP Bounty Contract

When you are looking for a Jedi's mission on the BH mission terminals, you will start by determining which ones are Jedi bounties from those that are NPC (non-player character) missions.

Payout is a good way to separate NPC missions from Jedi missions. Displayed payout for Jedi missions is around 50000 credits. Payout for NPC missions cap around 30000 credits. Any mission above 40000 credits is most likely a Jedi mission.

Only Jedi who have reached a certain level of visibility have a bounty contract put on their head. A single Jedi's mission can be taken by up to five bounty hunters at the same time.

Since publish 20, only missions on online Jedi are being offered on the terminal, which guarantees that your mark is online at the time when you pick the mission (note that he can log out after you took the contract).

Since publish 20, all mission payouts displayed on terminal are random, and are the minimum payment you will get. The actual payment you will get if you complete your mission depends on the actual level of the Jedi (a full template Jedi is worth 225000 credits). There is no way to know the exact payout before you complete the mission. This change was introduced to prevent BH from focusing on padawans.

The bounty hunter terminal will display the faction of the Jedi (Imperial, Rebel or Neutral).

Finding your mark

Next, speak with your informant and send your droids as you might for any other BH mission. The Arakyd droid will tell you what planet your Jedi mark is on.

If your mark is in space, you will normally get a message explaining that your droid can not locate the mark.

If your mark is on Kashyyyk, you will get a message explaining that your droid can not pinpoint your target; at this point you can either decide to cancel the mission and try another one, or go to Kashyyyk and try to find your mark manually (which can take a lot of time and effort for nothing).

If the mark is on any other planet, travel to this planet. When you land, use a seeker droid to identify and/or track your mark. "Identify target" should return you the name of the Jedi you are hunting (currently not working properly). "Track target" will update you with the waypoint to your mark.

When you arrive in the area where the Jedi is, I'd stay a good 450 meters away from the waypoint. Now is when you refine your tactics. Open your Planetary Map (Ctrl+V), and watch as the waypoint updates. (You should have already checked the map to find your best route to the target area after landing on the planet)

Is the bounty moving? Is he in a player city, or a POI? What are his possible escape points when you show up? Is the terrain suitable for a fight in your advantage? Do you know the terrain, POI, city, or player-city well enough to make combat decisions on-the-fly? You should ask yourself these - and other questions - to fine tune your tactics rather than going in guns-a-blazin' (if you just run in fighting, you're usually asking to get killed).

Make sure you have a /deathblow macro set up so you can kill the Jedi if he should become incapacitated. Also, if your macros loop, have a /dump command to keep them from looping when you want them to stop. Many hunters also have macros for their bomb droids.

Using the element of surprise

Before picking up a mission, you should check a few things. Basically, the Jedi is supposed to be more powerful than any other combat profession - that includes Bounty Hunter. This means that in order to win, you may want to use the element of surprise. Having a Bounty Hunter profession tag up will likely give you away. You may have to decide if giving yourself away is worth having the tag up. Make sure you are not easily spotted by Jedi who use the "/who" command by going to your Community menu (Ctrl+P) and making yourself anonymous (look for the checkbox at the bottom of one of the tabs, where it asks if you want other players to be able to search for you).

Do NOT send the Jedi /tells before you show up, that is a great way to give up your advantage of surprise. In fact, I recommend never speaking to a Jedi bounty. If you do, try to be polite - it is just a game, and if they are rude or threaten you, you should probably /addignore them. Remember, anger is rarely useful in fighting, it is more important to keep your wits about you and pay attention to what is happening combat-wise than to try to win some verbal battle.

I know I said not to speak to your bounty, but at times you will find speaking to them can deceive them into thinking you aren't after them. Then you may want to, but realize Jedi are keeping their eye out for this, and will instantly suspect anyone /telling them who they don't know. Some hunters have used /tells right before attacking their targets to distract them, and some friends of Jedi have even sent me tells before or during a hunt to distract me. If you ever find time to use /addignore that may be nice, but another thing you might consider is muting the User-Interface sounds from the Sound tab in the Options menu.

Some bounties don't require that you lift a finger. Some of the best hunts have been carried out this way. An example of this would be a case where one Jedi was dueling another, and actually got to the point of incapacitating him. Then the bounty hunter with his mission (who had been watching and waiting), walked up and hit /deathblow.

If you decide to engage a Jedi in mortal combat, and you are a long or medium-ranged hunter, your most important thing is keeping your distance from the Jedi. When they get close enough, they can put you in a world of pain. If this should occur, have some Stim D's ready, or some kind of stims anyway. Watch your combat tab from time to time - and you can see when your stims will be ready for use again (it tells you how much time until you can use the stim next, when you try to use a stim and it doesn't work).

You will eventually develop your own tactics and style of combat. When you're fighting, do your best to keep your wits about you and pay attention to all the details, it may just get you the win.

One great way to surprise a Jedi, is to show up at a player event uninvited, but blend with the crowd. Then you may be able to get in a /deathblow or attack them when they are unprepared. Though you will become unpopular in some Jedi circles for interfering with a player event, and even the event coordinators, you may find circles of hunters who would praise your tactics. You should decide of course, whether the bounty is worth the hurt relations to you.

You may also get banned from a city when hunting Jedi, because people who side with the Jedi in their matters - or simply are their friends - are capable of doing so. Do not fear, you will not be stopped from hunting a bounty in that city just by being banned. The main thing a city ban does to hurt you, is keeps you from using their shuttle port. In no way does that stop you from completing your mission, it simply inconveniences you. Unfortunately, this also means you cannot shuttle TO their shuttle port from an outside shuttle. A lot of player cities that ban people like this, have long lists of people who are banned, and are not likely to unban you, though you can usually find someone to appeal to - although personally I don't take the effort do do so, I've only had about 4 city bans so far.

Sometimes you will get message that says "mission incomplete". This is because another bounty hunter beat you to the bounty. They got paid, and you didn't. Looks like you'll need to pick up another Jedi's mission, or wait until that one gets on the terminals again. Of course, you lose the mission, so if you try to go after that Jedi again later - you'll have to pick it up again.

Also, when a Jedi is online, but the droids report he is offline, that may mean the Jedi is in space or on the Corvette (and instanced mission) which means you will be unable to attack them. Currently, there is no bounty TEF in space, so you can't hunt them there. Given that droids don't update their location in space, I don't see how this would matter much anyway.

Finally, effective in Publish 20, Jedi can no longer evade bounty hunters by entering Player Structures.

credit to Giles025 on SWG Official forums