It sounds like there is something wrong with that game because you will never get just a blank screen when trying to send a spy.

And if the top player on your team will get a bounty attacking someone then so will the smallest player on that team. And attacks include sending spies.

Its my server he's playing on. I've applied all released patches, and have not customized any code.

If the higher ranked team member scanned and it warned him about Fed bounty, then lower ranked team member scanned and it did NOT warn him about Fed bounty, is that normal? So he attempted to send spy to that planet since the scan did not report fed bounty warning, and that's when he says he got a blank screen.

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Note he could have been on the edge of the bounty range, which sometimes will give you a false reading. What were the players scores, His and then his target and I could tell you.... Of course I'd need the highest team mate of the targets score to see.

Oops, I was wrong.

The bounty check being the same for all players on a team is only when someone is attacking YOU.

As Tarnus mentioned that player could have been right on the edge of your bounty range. You scanned and it said you wouldn't get a bounty. Someone else online could have attacked and taken one of his planets, attacked his defenses, scheduler ran changing scores, ect between the time you scanned and attacked. When you attacked you got the bounty because on or a combination of the things mentioned happened.

If there was a fix that would be great however we have not been able to repeat the bug you have mentioned on our servers. So its hard to fix something we can't get to break.