Bounty Star: Advanced Combat Guide

I’m here to provide an advanced overview of the Bounty Star combat system that can hopefully serve as a guide for anyone really diving into Bounty Star’s combat.

Bounty Star Combat In A Nutshell

The way Bounty Star works is that you select an available bounty and then pursue it. Before pursuing, you may customize your mech, and you may pursue the bounty in either the morning, afternoon, or evening.

Succeeding in the bounty nets you payout, and capturing a mark nets you a bonus. Every bounty also has substasks you can execute on for a final bonus.

Loadout

You want to bring a well-suited mech to any bounty. Take good stock of all the equipment you own to make a loadout that does good by you in the upcoming bounty.

Every loadout must have a melee weapon and a firearm. There are a variety of both to obtain.

There are 3 different slots for support systems that each allow a combat mechanic like dashing, blocking, healing, temporary power states, and more.

Inside the mech is an engine with 7 exposed properties: Hit Points, Movement Speed, Melee Damage, Firearm Damage, Thermal Regulation, and Fortune. Depending on your engine upgrade, there are 2-4 slots for augmentations that turn up these different properties.

Additionally, eating meals before bounties also turns up engine properties for the duration of one bounty. Which engine properties get turned up depends on the meal.

Thermal

A crucial reality of the mech’s engine is that it has a base temperature that it seeks to maintain, just like a modern combustion vehicle. Performing most actions either raises or lowers the temperature momentarily to some degree before returning to its base temperature. The changes in temperature are a result of the specific system used, and the speed at which the engine returns to its base temperature is based on your Thermal Regulation engine property.

The Red Expanse is a harsh desert world that can get both very hot and very cold. If you pursue a bounty in the afternoon, your mech’s base temperature will be higher than normal. If you pursue a bounty in the evening, it will be lower than normal. Finally, morning pursuit means a neutral base temperature.

The reason this is all important is because our brilliant and somewhat reckless protagonist Clem has modified her mech to get the most of each and every one of her actions, resulting in a singularly powerful machine. But pushing it too hard and too quickly towards hot or cold will result in a shutdown that leaves her vulnerable for a moment while the mech resets itself.

When customizing your mech, we suggest targeting a time of day for your pursuit, and then building accordingly. Some systems are very powerful and inflict dramatic temperate changes in your engine!

Ultimately, our customization system is meant to help you build the type of action game character you’ve enjoyed in various forms throughout time, while sometimes minding the thermal constraints of Bounty Star’s world.

Enemies

Each enemy is a unique combatant with its own set of attacks and behaviors. Each enemy also has 1 of 3 hit point types: Skin, Plate, or