Of the five roles available in Red Dead Online, the Bounty Hunter role is the only one that can get you gold. Making it an obvious choice to pick first in Red Dead Online.

At first glance, the Bounty Hunter role looks so simple to take. Just by capturing criminals aka the bounty targets, Rockstar will reward you with gold and money. However, there are certain tricks that you need to be aware of to get the best out of the Bounty Hunter role.

To start your journey as the Bounty Hunter, you need to get the license first. You just need to head to Rhodes and get to the bounty board. You will be introduced to the role with a cutscene, and after that, you can immediately carry out your duties as a Bounty Hunter.

How to Calculate Your Reward

In general, your Bounty Hunter rewards are determined by the time it takes for you from taking the bounties until you throw the targets to the Sheriff’s office. The longer the duration, the bigger the payout.

A Redditor by the name of piteraq has given an explanation about the calculation regarding the Bounty Hunter rewards in great detail. Aside from the duration, other factors also play roles in terms of your payout. Such as level of difficulty, the number of targets, and the DOA status when taken to the Sheriff’s office.

The table above shows the reward you can get from completing a single Bounty Hunter mission. As you can see, the amount of gold you can get increases from 3-15 minutes by 0.04 gold per 3-minute increment. From 15 minutes above, the increments are still the same, yet the duration increases by five minutes.

So, in order to be efficient, it’d be wise to finish a Bounty Hunter mission within a maximum of 15 minutes.

The difficulty also affects the amount of cash you will get. Missions with three Dollar signs have a 1.5 multiplier.

On top of that, the number of your bounty targets also affects your reward. 4-6 bounty targets will grant you a 2x multiplier to your cash reward.

The base reward for Bounty Hunter missions are $30 and 600 XP. For example, if you take a mission to capture four bounty targets with three Dollar signs and complete it within 15 minutes, here’s the calculation:

$30 x 2 x 1.5 x 0.625 = $56.25

600XP x 1.2 x 1.5 x 0.625 = 675 XP

15 minutes = 0.36 gold

 In addition to that, if you complete the mission within 15 minutes, you will receive 0.36 gold. But bear in mind that the targets need to be alive, otherwise, you will only earn half the rewards.

Legendary Bounty Rewards

Apart from the normal bounty hunter missions, Rockstar also added 10 Legendary Bounty missions. These missions offer varying base cash rewards. Take a look at the following table for the details:

After completing one Legendary Bounty mission, the difficulty will also increase by one level. The higher the difficulty, the bigger the rewards and XP it yields.

The increased rewards you get based on the duration as we’ve mentioned before also applies to Legendary Bounty missions: the longer it takes for you to complete the mission, the bigger the rewards you get.

However, keep in mind that there’s a 48 minutes cooldown for Legendary Bounty missions. Therefore, it’s a good idea to complete these missions full-time (30 minutes) for the maximum payout. Especially if it’s a 5-star mission.

How to Get the Best Out of the Bounty Hunter Role

From the numbers we’ve shown above, it’s clear that Rockstar wants players to play longer if they want to get as much gold as possible. And, there are ways to buy your time during these missions.

The first method is by going AFK (Away From Keyboard). The safest way to go AFK in Red Dead Online is by leaving your screen after opening the catalog. This way, you won’t be kicked out of the session.

Another method is by doing other activities such as hunting, gathering plants, etc.

Yet the most effective way is to do some Collector activities during the cooldown. Even if you haven’t got the Collector role, you can still collect the items and receive a good amount of XP.

These Collector items can be sold to Madam Nazar later on once you’ve purchased the Collector’s Bag. For more details about the Collector role, make sure to check Dunia Games’ guide for this role.

So, that was the complete guide for the Bounty Hunter role and how to calculate the rewards, which is the most prolific role so far. Watch the following Dunia Games’ video on Red Dead Online’s Bounty Hunter role, hosted by Dimedigger.