Bounty Hunter Archive

search this forum only, for topic title only. Grinding. Select 2 post. There is this great guide that is linked to at the bottom.

or i could just cut and paste

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SOMEONE WROTE :

I recently wrote my Painless Investigation Thread. Now that I have mastered BH, I thought I would expand my original post... enjoy

Investigation

When I started Investigation, all I had heard of it, was that it is hopelessly bugged. So, I started with an open mind and kept notes.

What I found, was that armed with the right information, the missions are not hopelessly bugged, and are, in fact, generally easy to complete.

I have compiled my information together, to help those Bounty Hunters having trouble with Investigation. Only some of this information is of my own discovery. I used this post from TheWildJedi and the FAQs and the Bounty Hunter Forum. Many clever people have provided information that is helpful, of which I am grateful, as it made it easier for me to finish it.

I am not claiming that this is how Investigation "should be done", instead, this is how I did it, (almost) bug-free.

Investigation 1/2

As a NBH, you will be doing so-called "Easy" missions. Easy missions are always located on your current planet. To save time it is best to only do missions that are close by (less than 1500m).

Before you start doing Investigation missions, you will need :

• Enough combat skills to handle the marks. Marks are generally 8k HAM, with ~20% Low-level Resists, and the skills of about a mid-level Pistoleer. If you dont have this, there is a hint below to help.
  
• You should not need buffs, but you will need armor to kill them. I have had marks do Stopping Shot on me for 800 dmg, so good armor is a must.
  
• Novice Medic is recommended as Carbine/LLC specials are extremely unhealthy if armored and unbuffed.

To start on a mission you will do the following:

• Get mission from Bounty Hunter Mission Terminal. Locations are in the FAQ, but recommended starting cities are Coronet or Tyrena.
  
• Speak to a Novice Spynet to get the waypoint. Locations are also in the FAQ. The Spynet will be mean to you... don't worry, they will fawn over you later.
  
• Travel to the waypoint, and kill the mark. The mark is stationary and is always directly under the waypoint.

Hints

• Equip your LLC before selecting a mission to get higher money/XP missions
  
• Unequip all weapons, to get low HAM, easy marks, but the XP reward will be lower.
  
• In Coronet and Tyrena, the Spynet is close enough to the Terminal to enable you to pick and choose the distance of the mission.

Completing

It is recommended that all players get to 10k XP before training Investigation 1 and 2 at the same time. Investigation 2 will take longer than by skipping it.

You will need to do around 60 Novice missions to get the 10k XP in order to train. Each mission should take around 5-7 minutes turnaround, so expect 5-7 hours to complete this step.

Mission Bugs

At this level the only bugs I experienced were the mark being stuck in the geometry, ie marks stuck in trees, walls, etc.

Marks will only fight once they are attacked, but if they are stuck, you cannot attack them. Some hints to get marks to fight back:

• If it is out of town, place a tent close by.
  
• With your weapon unequipped, push against the wall and attack the mark. Unarmed attacks can go through the wall sometimes.
  
• Try getting a pet to attack.
  
• Use an exploding droid
  
• Drag another mob over with unarmed skills and use Point Blank Area 1 near the mark. He should come out of the wall/tree, attacking.

Investigation 3/4

This is where the missions get harder. This is also where a lot of players shout about "bugged missions". Hopefully these notes should help you complete all your missions.

"Hard" bounty missions require you to travel to a different planet to find the mark. The only difference between Inv 3 & 4 is; XP gained, how many Seeker Droids you use and how fast they update. The marks are the same for all levels too.

Before you start doing Investigation 3 missions, you will need :

• Arakyd Probe Droids. You will use 1 per mission, so buy some in bulk.
  
• Seeker Droids. At Inv 3 you will use 1-4 per mission, at Inv 4 you will use none (a bug). They come in stacks of 10 per item, so expect to buy crates of 5 or 10.
  
• Ranger Tracking 2 skill. This is a must if you want to complete Inv 3&4 easily. I needed and used this skill many, many times to complete missions.

To start on a mission you will do the following:

• Get mission from Bounty Hunter Mission Terminal. Locations are in the FAQ, but Kaadara is almost mandatory as a location.
  
• Speak to a Level 3 or 4 Spynet to get the waypoint. Locations are also in the FAQ. The Spynet will be suitably grovelling when you are doing Inv 4.
  
• Head out of town and call a Probe Droid from orbit. Watch where it lands, and Transmit the Bio Sig to it.
  
• Head to the Shuttle on Kadaara and wait for notification of the planet the mark is on. With the new shuttle times, it is generally quicker to shuttle to Theed and insta-travel from there. Some players have mentioned a CTD, if you shuttle while waiting for a Probe droid, but it never happened to me, and I did it many times.
  
• Travel to the planet.
  
• On arrival, deploy a seeker.
  
• Travel to the waypoint, and kill the mark. The mark will be moving, so you might need to deploy seekers to find him as he moves.

Information about Marks

• Marks move at around 180m per minute. I have a feeling that Inv 4 marks go faster, but I am not sure of this.
  
• They always move in a straight line.
  
• They always go to a static city except on Endor and Lok, where they head in a random direction.
  
• The Waypoint does not equal the Mark. The waypoint is where the mark was, and is not where the mark is. Even 30s after the seeker finds the mark, the mark can be 90m from the waypoint.
  
• On Inv 3 missions, seekers can be innacurate up to 1-200m from the mark.
  
• The waypoints do not update for the first (approx) 15-18 minutes after the Probe Droid finds them. This means the first update will move the mark ~3500m. It is painful, but expect this, and plan for it.
  
• Coming close (within 250m or so) of the mark (not the waypoint), will cause the mark to stop moving.
  
• The mark will appear on radar when you are within 100m of him.
  
• I have heard talk of marks jumping planets, but it never happened to me, none of them ever made it to a shuttle.

Doing a mission

My method of doing a mission was always as follows:

1. On arrival on the target planet, deploy a seeker.
   
2. Call up the map with CTRL+V. Make a waypoint at the Mark waypoint. Activate it.
   
3. Based on how long it has taken to travel to the planet, allowing for the 15 minute stationary waypoint, try to guess where the mark is going (except on Lok and Endor). Shuttle closer if appropriate, especially if the initial mark waypoint is in the corner of the map.
   
4. Do not blindly head to the mark. There is no point, and most of the time, the travel is wasted. Remember, the first update will be at least 3000m away.
   
5. Once you get the first real update, you will know what line the mark will take. Now make a new waypoint, estimating where the mark will be when you get there. If the mark is 6000m away, it will take 6 minutes on Swoop, so add 1200m to the mark's direction. Those numbers are my rules of thumb numbers, but they are pretty accurate. Use a ruler on your computer screen if you like, to ensure accuracy (I did)
   
6. Head to this waypoint and not the mark waypoint.
   
7. Deploy more seekers en-route (unless you have Find and Track at Inv 3)
   
8. From that waypoint, you can tell if it will be over water. If you would meet over water, you should instead make a waypoint 500m past the edge of the water along the line of travel. Meeting over water will break the mission and waste all that travel time. Better to wait for an extra 5 minutes than to waste 20-30 minutes on shuttles.
   
9. Use the initial waypoint with the seeker waypoints to line up the direction of travel. Line up the arrows on the screen to ensure you are travelling along the line. As long as you have the right line you will always find your mark.
   
10. If you think the mark should be where you are, use /areatrack to check for him. If he is close by (300m or so) he will be named and the direction he is in. If he is not named, you have miscalculated and are in the wrong spot. Try another seeker or travel along the line again. Quite often the mark is further along the line of travel than you expected.
    
11. Don't give up! The mark is there. Don't waste all the shuttle time and give up. Use your head.

Mission Bugs

These missions are notorious for having bugs. There are in actuality only a couple of bugs, all of which can be worked around.

• Marks over water. If you approach a mark (not the waypoint) and it is over a large patch of water, this mission is Incomplete, and cannot be recovered. If it is over a medium-sized patch of water, the waypoint will be set to the shore, and the mission becomes bugged and not able to be completed. To ensure you can complete all missions, follow my steps above, and plan to never meet your mark over water.
  
• Mark not spawning. This is the painful one, more likely on Endor or Dathomir. You have found your mark, with seekers and /areatrack, but he just doesnt spawn. To workaround this one, use /areatrack multiple times (following the direction) until you know you are standing directly over the mark. Make a waypoint here. Now drag a mob over the mark and use an AOE attack (like Point Blank Area 1). The mark spawns and you can then kill him.
  
• I have heard of marks de-spawning during combat, but never experienced it myself.
  
• I have also heard of marks being white/untargetable, but also did not experience this.

Completing

You will need to do 18 missions to finish Inv 3, and 40 missions to finish Inv 4. Each missions takes 20-50 mins turnaround, with around 35 minute average. Expect to take at least 30 hours to do these 2 boxes.

Gaining Investigation XP by Jamming Bases

You can also gain Bounty Hunter XP by jamming the uplink on factional bases. This is an easy 1000XP provided you do it right. It also does not damage the base.

To do this you will need:

• To be Overt. You cannot do this while covert.
  
• You will need to be buffed and armored to fight your way in (or have friends with you).
  
• You need to know the vulnerability window. If you don't know that it is vulnerable, don't waste your time. The windows moves each night due to a bug. You will need a friend on the other faction to give you the time. Remember, this doesnt hurt the base (unless a Squad Leader, Bio-Engineer and Smuggler visit it after you)

Once you have fought your way in, and are no longer in combat, do a /target uplink, to find where it is. If you can't find it, the base is not vulnerable.

Go to the uplink, and jam it. It poses 2 simple number guessing games, once correctly guessed, you get 1000XP, the equivalent of 3 Inv 3 missions.

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You can either - read the huge great long post that is full of good advice or...........

drop inv 2. At Inv 1 all ur marks are on same planet and u get a WP, no need for droids that could fail. Grind enough exp at inv1 to take you straight to inv3, at which point you will find that your droids work so much better (you wont loose so many, they track target for longer, they update a lot quicker).

wait what about the BH xp cap for teir one? it made me get teir 2 because i couldn't get anymore xp