As a criminal player, the idea of prisons and criminal gameplay in Star Citizen has always excited me. Rather than just being a mechanic to punish 'griefers' the idea was always that they should fun and potentially enhance gameplay. As CIG recently stated, "while they are intended to serve as punishment and something most players will try their best to avoid, we want to ensure that they’re so fun and interesting that players will view them as simply a different set of opportunities to exploit and challenges to solve.". I think that the initial implementation of prisons is actually great (difficult escape traversal and broken hand mining aside - please fix), and I truly look forward to the extra gameplay that prisons will bring. However, with 3.10 just around the corner I'm concerned that a couple of gameplay decisions from CIG that make gameplay currently frustrating might not be addressed; 1 - Proximity detainment (when you're sent to prison because a bounty hunter is near by) 2 - Bounty markers. Before anyone jumps in with "so don't play as a criminal" I implore you to please open your mind and continue reading. Proximity Detainment Right now, criminals are sent to prison when they die in proximity of a bounty hunter, and/or if Bob who has just logged in for the first time ever has the 'Call to Arms' mission. I understand why CIG chose this method of sending crims to prison, but after 3 months of being sent to prison because of bugs, I am exhausted. Let me share some of the ways I have been sent to prison. While reading, please bare in mind that these are not edge cases. This can happen multiple times a day; - Enter elevator at Grim Hex. Instantly die. Go to prison. - Buy water at grim hex. Get tethered to the spot. Die. Go to prison. - Carefully EVA from a ship to a landing pad. Character falls no matter what. Die. Go to prison. - Carefully EVA in to a ship. Die. Go to prison. - Use a rock in an asteroid belt for cover. Explode on invisible geometry. Go to prison. - Run down the stairs at Grim Hex. Character falls. Die. Go to prison. - Enter quantum. Exit quantum. Be inside another ship. Explode. Go to prison. - Quantum to an outpost. Spline in to planet. Go to prison. These are just a number of ways I have gone to prison in the last week and I mentioned previously, this happens multiple times a day. Something else to bare in mind is that while we have all these bugs to contend with, we also have bounty hunters trying to kill us. Bounty hunters with nothing to lose. Bounty hunters who, when they lose the fight, can respawn and try again in 5 minutes. I would also argue that proximity detainment also encourages pad ramming, however, hopefully this may be resolved in 3.10. Bounty Markers Bounty Markers are at this point, an old mechanic. I understand why they work the way they do, they were a stop gap. So what's the issue? Let me give an example from the very first day that 3.9 dropped. I actually decided to run some player bounties. I flew to the bounty marker. It's night time at a caterpillar ground wreck, the mark is doing a black box mission. I fly in and land. I see the marker inside a ship and take a moment to equip my sniper rifle. He comes out, I see nothing but pitch black, flares and a feint outline of the ship. I fire at the marker, he runs back inside and hides. A few minutes later I see the marker move to another side of the ship. I wait until it's 10-20 yards away from the ship and fire at the marker. Mission complete. He had no chance of seeing me or fighting back. The same issue occurs when you're at locations like SPK, or comm arrays. Sure, you can have your friends run protection. But that doesn't give YOU the opportunity to counter ambush. So what would I change to make criminal gameplay a little less one sided? 1 - Get rid of bounty markers directly above the heads of criminals. Instead, when a bounty hunter comes within range have it become a 'search area'. This I would argue encourages people to use their eyes and powers of investigation and encourages gameplay. 2 - Either bounty hunters should lose the bounty mission after dying to their bounty target and/or bounty hunters should pay a deposit fee for the mission. If they die to the target, they lose the fee. 3 - Remove proximity detainment. I understand why the choice was made, but it is far too punishing when there are so many bugs that can send people to prison. Criminals should only be sent to prison when the bounty hunter(s) receive payment for that bounty. I also understand why people might not like the idea of removing the proximity detainment, but I strongly believe that the people who would use ingame suicide to counter prison, are the same people who are currently combat logging to avoid prison. I don't see this is a long term fix, I see this as a way to stop me losing my mind for the next 3 months and a temporary stop gap until a more fleshed out bounty/law/prison system is in place and less bugs kill people. I tried to keep this as simple as possible, this is literally the TLDR of how I feel on the topic. Apologies for the essay. I'm curious to hear the experiences of others who play as criminals and I'd also love to hear some of the weirdest ways that you guys have been to prison. For those of you who don't play as criminals, I encourage you to give it a go for an evening or a weekend. Thanks for taking the time to read my musings. Don't forget to lik and subscrib. P.s. Todd Pappy & Tony Z, I welcome you to come and play with me and my crims for a few hours so you can see how frustrating all of the above can be. Edit: changed a few words as I didn't want to seem too negative.