Bounty Contract missions (basic Henchman targets)
Getting the mission
First you collect your Bounty Contract mission from the Bounty Contract Terminal in the Cartel Bazaar area on Fleet. You can only complete one Henchman contract per character per day. Each faction has six planet missions to choose from (four shared, two faction-specific):
- Ord Mantell/Hutta
- Coruscant/Dromund Kaas
- Nar Shaddaa
- Tatooine
- Alderaan
- Voss
Each Bounty Contract has a minimum level requirement, depending on the target planet. Thus at level 15 (the minimum level for participating in the event) only the starter world and capital world contracts are available to you.
Note that your character does not need to have a personal starship to take part in the event: if you are level 15 and without a ship, you can use the Interfleet Transport shuttles to gain access to the first two contract planets for your faction.
Interrogating shady characters
Once you have picked up the Contract mission, travel to the chosen planet and speak with the Client who posted the bounty (a short cutscene conversation).
Next you have to interrogate Shady Character NPCs to gain five pieces of Underworld Information. The mechanic for this is similar to the Imperial quest in the Black Hole to scan for potential spies, i.e., you scan the NPC with an Investigation Probe (quest object, 15 second cooldown) which hits the NPC with a debuff that prevents anyone else from questioning them. The Shady Character will either volunteer information, refuse to talk, or turn hostile and summon three additional mobs of your character’s level to attack you. After this interaction, the NPC despawns and another NPC will respawn in its place a short while later.
If you have to fight the Shady Character and his/her associates, remember to loot the bodies afterward! There is a chance you will pick up a blue consumable item called ‘Underworld Information’. Right-click on that item in your inventory and it will count that investigation as successful, contributing toward the total of five successes that you need.
This investigation process is the most time-consuming stage of a Bounty Contract mission, and one where you will be in direct competition with other players to get to the required NPCs. At present on PTS it takes me on average 20 to 30 minutes to solo a Contract mission from start to finish (from pick-up to final turn-in), depending on how helpful the Shady Characters are and how much travel is involved, though I have completed a few in just over 15 minutes. If grouped players are able to share their successful investigation results (which seems likely, but I don’t group so I haven’t tested it), one might reasonably expect a timeframe of 15-20 minutes for a group to complete a Contract mission.
Consumables
There are two types of consumable item that you can use instead of the Investigation Probe to question a Shady Character NPC, to improve your chances of success. Be aware that using one type (Friendly Drink) awards Light Side points, and the other type (Interrogation Probe) awards Dark Side points. The consumables only improve your chance of success, they do not guarantee a successful result. You will receive one of each type of consumable as part of your quest reward on final turn-in of a Bounty Contract mission. More consumables can be purchased (at a cost of 800 credits each) from a BBA Mobile Supply Droid (Investigation Supplies vendor). One of these droids is located close to the Bounty Contract Terminal on Fleet, and you can usually find one in the same area as the bounty Client on each planet.
Locating the target
Once you have gathered your five pieces of Underworld Information, the location of an ‘Underworld Contact’ appears on your UI WorldMap. This will point you to a clickable quest object, which you use to initiate a cutscene conversation with the Contact (determined randomly). This cutscene conversation usually includes Light Side/Dark Side options. The Underworld Contact will provide you with the identity and location of the target Henchman for the mission.
The target Henchman is determined randomly (see below). Unlike the Client, Shady Characters and Underworld Contact (who appear in the same place each time), the various Henchmen will be found in different locations on each planet. The quest marker points you to a beacon (clickable quest object) which you activate to summon your target Henchman. You can either kill the Henchman or capture them alive (a courtesy carbonite grenade is supplied as a mission item, but the target must be below 10% health before you can use it).
Collecting your reward
After dealing with the Henchman you return to the Client for another short cutscene conversation. You then return to Fleet and turn in the contract at the Bounty Delivery Station (right next to the Bounty Contract Terminal) to receive your final reward. To make life easier, after speaking with the Client you are provided with a ‘BBA Fleet Transport Authorisation’ (i.e., a one-time Fleet Pass, 10 minute cooldown) as a mission item.
Kingpin Bounties (Crime Lord targets)
Buy a Kingpin Contract Authorisation
You have to purchase Kingpin Contract Authorisations (i.e., unlocks) from the Bounty Contract Broker vendor who stands near to the Bounty Contract Terminal on Fleet.
Each Kingpin Contract Authorisation is a Bind-on-Pickup item and costs 5 ‘Completed Bounty Contract’ tokens. Those tokens are stackable Bind-on-Pickup items that are stored in your inventory bag. You receive one as part of your final quest reward each time that you complete a daily Contract mission.
There are six Kingpin Contract Authorisations available for each faction, one for each planet, and the unlock applies specifically to the named planet and only unlocks Kingpin contracts for the character who purchases and activates it. Thus, given that the tokens are BoP and can’t be mailed between characters, you have to do five daily Contract missions with the same character (at the rate of one per day) in order to buy one Kingpin unlock for one planet for that particular character. However, the tokens appear to be generic, so it doesn’t matter which planets you have completed the Contract missions on in order to acquire them.
Each Kingpin Contract Authorisation has a minimum level requirement, roughly commensurate with the target planet (e.g., Tatooine has a minimum level requirement of 23, Voss requires level 42).
Kingpin Bounty missions
Once you have unlocked Kingpin Contracts for a planet, you can pick up that daily ‘Kingpin Bounty’ mission from the Bounty Contract Terminal. As with the Henchman contracts, you can only complete one Kingpin Bounty per character per day. Kingpin Bounties are designated as ‘Group’ missions; at present (on PTS) they seem to be roughly on a par with a Heroic 2, so some players may be able to solo them.
Note that you cannot have both a Bounty Contract (Henchman) and a Kingpin Bounty (Crime Lord) for the same planet in your Mission Log at the same time. Once you have accepted one, the other is temporarily removed from the list on the Bounty Contract Terminal until you have either completed or abandoned the quest in your Log. It is still possible to do both quests on the same planet consecutively, picking up one after completing the other.
Finding the Kingpin
Once you have picked up the Kingpin mission, you travel to the planet and meet the Client who posted the bounty (a short cutscene conversation).
For Kingpin Bounty missions you do not need to question Shady Characters. Instead, you are given Bounty Seeker Probes (mission item, provided) which you release all in one go in a specified area. The probes fly away through the air, and you then have to find and scan five of them using macrobinoculars (mission item, provided) within the designated target area.
Although you are not given specific viewing points to scan from, the target area is sufficiently small that if you stand near the centre and keep looking with your binos, with a little patience you should hopefully be able to pick up five probes without having to run around. The probes seem to move around a bit, or possibly new ones spawn in over time; so if you don’t pick up all five in your first 360 degree sweep, it’s worth doing at least one more full sweep before moving elsewhere. The two notable exceptions to this are Ord Mantell and Nar Shaddaa, where the target areas are larger and visibility is partly blocked in some directions, so you may well have to move to a second position to be able to find five probes.
Taking on the Crime Lord
Once you have scanned five Bounty Seeker Probes, you can proceed to lure out the target Crime Lord. The Crime Lord is not random, but specific to the planet. The quest marker points you to a clickable quest object, which you activate to summon the Crime Lord. Voss is an exception, where you actually have to use two clickable quest objects in succession to summon your target.
Again, you can either kill or capture the Crime Lord (using the carbonite grenade provided).
After dealing with the Crime Lord, you return to the Client for another short cutscene conversation. You then return to Fleet (BBA Fleet pass provided) and turn in the contract at the Bounty Delivery Station for your final reward.
Commendations
For characters level 15 to 51 (and presumably up to 54) Bounty Contracts for Henchmen targets award two Planetary Commendations on final turn-in, and Kingpin Bounties award three Planetary Commendations.
For level 55 characters, Bounty Contracts award two basic commendations and Kingpin Bounties award three basic commendations on final turn-in.
Reputation with the Bounty Brokers Association (BBA)
For Bounty Contracts for Henchmen, you receive a small reputation trophy (+270 rep) as an interim reward after you have spoken with your Underworld Contact. You also receive a medium trophy (+630 rep) on final turn-in of the mission.
It appears that the interim award of one small reputation trophy can only be gained once per character per day. Thus if you reset the Contract mission after receiving the interim award, or abandon that Contract and pick up another Contract mission (or indeed the same one) from the Bounty Contract Terminal, you will have to go through the investigation process all over again but you will not receive a second interim award that day for your efforts.
For Kingpin Bounties, you receive a medium trophy (+630 rep) on final turn-in.
There is a one-time ‘breadcrumb quest’ that awards a small reputation trophy (+270 rep). To start the quest, just click on one of the floating carbonite cases (called ‘Captured Bounty’) on the Main Level of Fleet. These are located near the outer elevator exits, close to where the news holocasters appear for the Gree event.
The breadcrumb quests are worth doing to see the cutscene sequences (especially the Republic one), as well as for the rep. trophies.
Achievements (listed under Bounty Contract Week)
There are eight Crime Lords (one per planet) and eight Henchmen (randomly appearing across all the planets). For each of these sixteen targets there are three available Achievements:
- capture the target alive [5 prestige]
- kill the target [5 prestige]
- collect the bounty for the target (dead or alive) [5 prestige]
In addition, there are also some ‘General’ Achievements for Bounty Contract Week. Note that in order to complete the first five of these you will have to have at least one eligible character (level 15+) on both factions.
- captured all available bounties alive [25 prestige + 20 cartel coins]
- killed all available bounties [25 prestige + 20 cartel coins]
- both captured and killed all available bounty targets [100 prestige + 20 cartel coins + legacy title ‘Wanted: Dead or Alive’]
- collected a bounty on every available Crime Lord [25 prestige + 20 cartel coins]
- unlocked all available Kingpin contracts [25 prestige + 20 cartel coins + legacy title ‘Death Mark in Seven Systems’]
- met the Cartel Hangar Sniper [10 prestige + legacy title ‘Cartel Security’]
Things to watch out for (possible spoilers)
Henchmen are elite (gold) mobs of your character’s level. During the fight they will summon a pair of adds. The adds aren’t that tough on health, but some of them do have really nasty knockback abilities. Be sure to deal with the adds quickly, or you could find your arse handed to you on a plate.
Crime Lords are champion (gold and silver star) mobs of your character’s level. Each Crime Lord has an individual combination of adds that will be summoned during the course of the fight. The adds can be regular, tough (silver) or elite (gold), and will usually arrive either singly or in pairs. These adds seem to be slightly tougher than average to kill, though that could just be from the perspective of having a champion Crime Lord bouncing on your head at the same time. As a general rule of thumb, if the first adds to arrive are a pair of regular mobs then you should expect to see a couple more waves of adds (not necessarily of the same type) arriving as the fight progresses.
The one exception to this is the Crime Lord who has non-combative adds. You’ll see what I mean when you encounter him. I applaud Bioware’s creativity.
Soon after picking up a Kingpin Bounty mission for the first time, you should receive an in-game mail from the target Crime Lord. They’re aware you’re coming after them now, so this is fighting talk.
At present (on PTS) it seems that if you survive to kill/capture your target bounty successfully then your repair bill is negligible. If you are defeated, you end up paying the full whack for repairs as usual.
The BBA reputation vendors on Fleet (in the Cartel Bazaar) sell fully moddable bowcasters (slots empty) in a steampunk style. These are bind-to-legacy, equipabble at level 10, requiring either sniper rifle or blaster rifle proficiency. One of each type requires Newcomer status with BBA, and a second of each type requires Hero status. Unfortunately the current prices on PTS are very high (250K credits for a Newcomer weapon, and 750K credits for a Hero one), we can only hope that they reduce the cost on live.
One of the Underworld Contacts is a male Twi’lek who offers a same-sex Flirt option (assuming your character is male) which is actually kind of fun, the way it plays out.
Henchman distribution
Given that Henchmen are scaled to your character’s level, it would seem logical (to me) that you could find any one of them on any of the destination planets. Whether some Henchmen are more likely to appear on certain planets than others, I don’t know; it’s impossible to tell at this early stage.
Thus far I have completed six Bounty Contracts on each of the eight planets. Given the vagaries of RNG systems, I do realise that such a small-scale sampling is more likely to be misleading than helpful; but I’ve listed below the data of which Henchmen appeared where for me, and how many times, FYI.
- Hutta: T’rubba (3), Udo Ensh (1), Kar’wa (2)
- Ord Mantell: T’rubba (1), D-3X (4), Kar’wa (1)
- Coruscant: D-3X (1), Novane (1), Zinda Kent (2), Kar’wa (2)
- Dromund Kaas: Novane (2), Zinda Kent (3), Kar’wa (1)
- Nar Shaddaa: Aja Novar (2), Novane (2), Zinda Kent (2)
- Tatooine: Udo Ensh (1), Sogan Sur (2), Novane (2), Kar’wa (1)
- Alderaan: Aja Novar (1), D-3X (1), Novane (3), Zinda Kent (1)
- Voss: Aja Novar (1), D-3X (2), Sogan Sur (1), Kar’wa (2)
Graham Sellars has created this most amazing (and enormous) wall poster:
