Some Neat Reputation Tricks

Thu May 15, 2003 12:51 pm by T-hawk

After some experimentation, I found that all the values in empathy.ini seem to apply to *everything* that affects your rep. Bribes, missions, and kills all make you friendlier with that faction's friends and worse with that faction's enemies, at the ratios given in empathy.ini.

One of the best ways to get an improvement in a faction's attitude is to fly missions for one of its friends. This isn't going to turn a faction from your worst enemies into your best friend (unless you do it a LOT), but it's great for getting a faction up from hostile to neutral to get them off your back, or for getting a faction just over the line into friendly so you can take missions for them.

Let's say you're hostile against the Corsairs, and want to get them to neutral to get them off your back. In empathy.ini, we see that the ONLY two factions that are significantly friendly with them are Hogosha and Junkers. (The Corsairs hate a LOT of people, so trying to bribe them will cause rep problems with a lot of groups.)

Let's look at the enemies of those factions. The Junkers hate Xenos - perfect! Go to a Junker base (I used Beaumont in Texas), and look at the mission board. Missions against the Xenos are available, although you might have to reload a few times to find one among all the missions against the Bounty Hunters.

Each mission you fly will improve your rep with the Corsairs by about one-fifth of a box. You can knock off missions in 4-5 minutes each, flying a powerful ship against level-2 Xeno ships. After about an hour, you can have the Corsairs up out of hostility and neutral to you. (Add another hour or so if you want to get them up above zero, and then you can go fly missions for the Corsairs themselves if you want to get them to friendly status to, say, buy a ship.)

What side effects does this have? Well, according to empathy.ini, the only faction that the Junkers significantly hate is Hogosha. But - get this - the Hogosha also hate the Xenos. Running missions for the Junkers will make Hogosha somewhat angry, but you'll make up for that with all the Xeno kills!

There's also the neat side effect that the Junkers also have good empathy with another faction that's hard to get in good with: the Red Hessians.

All in all, flying missions is the finely precise scalpel to adjust your reputation with different factions exactly as you need. After an hour of doing that for the Corsairs, and half an hour flying missions for friends of the other two groups that hated me (flew for Unioners to please the Gaians, and Gateway Shipping to please IMG), I've got my rep neutral or better with everyone except the Xenos, and I can go explore or run cargo anywhere I want with nobody bothering me.

Thu May 15, 2003 6:52 pm by [SD]Falcon

Cool trick but you know what I did? I just killed 80-100 xenos for the same result.

Thu May 15, 2003 7:31 pm by Pinger

yep just sit outside a xeno base and kill everything for 10 mins. That way you dont get penalised for doing missions for another faction. Other one like that is the Buschal faction. Plus you make a lot of money from any weapons you pick up in the process.

Fri May 16, 2003 12:13 am by Thorkild

Agreed. Missions tend to earn you more cash (not in Liberty, though), but when you complete them you tend to anger that faction's enemies. This is not true if you just run around looking for trouble.

I've been singling out the Corsairs (I don't like the Titan, and the weapons are cheaper when you tractor them in) and the Xenos. At this point, they are the only factions that are hostile toward me.

Fri May 16, 2003 1:30 am by Obike Fixx

Well, I've had some problems concerning that "Kill all their enemies" tactic.

Time! I've been waiting outside a Xeno base for like 2-3 hours. But with only a slight change my Junker Rep..
What's wrong with that? You say it takes about 10 min., but for me it would take days!
How come?

Fri May 16, 2003 2:54 am by Clucky

One of my favorite tricks is to target a particular faction only. That's where the empathy really comes into play. When I was trying to get in good with Bundschuh to buy the Sunslayer, I flew around the system until I found a border station run by the police. I shot the station up until I heard them call for backup, then killed an uncountable number of police banshees. Most of the shipping companies turned 'temporarily' hostile toward me and tried to kill me too, but I only shot & killed the police banshees. It gets pretty difficult with so many people gunning for you, but you can always take the trade lane a few kilometers away, wait, then go back. Most of those NPC's will go about their business. I quit when my reputation was green with Bundschuh.

The result was this: the police sort of hated me briefly, but less than if I had attacked the other factions they are allied with. I docked & bought my weapons, then on exiting, harassed the base until I'd killed about 100 Bundschuh. It *really* polarizes your rep. I ended up with 1 neutral faction, a handful of enemies, and most friendly factions. (Results may vary. Please see your doctor to determine if killing is right for you.)

"If it bleeds, we can kill it."

Fri May 16, 2003 3:19 am by T-hawk

Well, what do you do to get in good with a faction that doesn't respond to killing Xenos, which the Corsairs don't? To get in good with the Corsairs, you have to either bribe them, or do stuff like kill piles of Navy and Police ships, which kills your reputation with a LOT of other factions as Clucky observes. The Corsairs do hate the Red Hessians, so if you don't mind the Hessians hating you, you can kill them to get in good with the Corsairs.

But flying missions for the Junkers is a great way to improve your reputation with both the Corsairs and Hessians at the same time. If you're going to be killing Xenos anyway, you might as well be doing it for the Junkers, improving your relations with the two criminal groups, and picking up some pocket change along the way too

Edited by - T-hawk on 16-05-2003 04:20:00

Fri May 16, 2003 3:34 am by T-hawk

Actually, the best use of flying missions for the rep is if you can do it FOR a faction friendly to the one you want to improve with, attacking ENEMIES of that faction. You apply two factors of improving your rep at the same time. When I did that business flying missions for the Junkers to kill Xenos: the Lane Hackers, Outcasts, and Mollys also ALL loved me for it, since all of them are friendly with the Junkers but dislike the Xenos - improving my rep with the criminal groups much faster than just killing Xenos. (It takes about 80 Xeno kills to improve one box of reputation with the Lane Hackers. It takes about six missions for the Junkers against Xenos to do the same.)

Nobody hates BOTH the Junkers and Xenos, so there were NO bad side effects on my reputation from doing this. That's the beauty of it!

As we know, the only people who really like the Xenos are the Zoners, but they also like the Junkers - so as far as the Zoners were concerned, my Xeno kills were balanced by the positive effect from Junker missions, and my rep with the Zoners didn't change. Likewise, the only faction that really hates the Junkers is Hogosha, but they also hate the Xenos so once again my rep changes were balanced.

Flying missions for the Junkers to kill Xenos improves your reputation with EVERYBODY. Xeno kills do go a long way, but they aren't the complete picture, especially where the Corsairs are concerned. And missions do have a big effect on relations - as far as affecting your reputation with other factions, one mission is worth about 8 kills.

Edited by - T-hawk on 16-05-2003 04:39:43

Fri May 16, 2003 6:24 am by DaVoid

I did something a little easier then that to get all factions neutral.

1. Destroy supply depot outside liberty, liberty criminals now neutral
2. Go on a little tour to get all factions listed on my rep list
3. Slaughter Xenos until Corsairs, Red Hessians and a few other criminal factions just above neutral.
4. Kill some Bounty Hunters to get everyone but Xenos neutral.
5. Kill some more Bounty Hunters plus any legit faction you are green with until Xenos neutral.

I have managed to do this, mostly in a Dromedary until recently, and now everyone neutral and Liberty Navy and Security force friendly to me.

~ DaVoid, Expert Star Diver

Fri May 16, 2003 6:51 am by Victor

Well, for "power gaming" my favorite "trick" is to go Hessian bashing in dresden for a while, at least until the Corsairs are neutral, I'm not a big fan of the Titan but I love their shield. In the process I make a LOT of money off the loot, especially all the noibium they carry and as an added bonus I end up friendly with virtually every Rheinland non-criminal faction. So, I go get my Eagle and the Corsair shield, go back to Rheinland and kill off as many Police, Military, Bounty Hunter and corporate targets as I can without making any enemies. At this point I'm usually neutral or friendly with most of the criminal factions and no worse than neutral with all off the "good guys." All that's left is to go back to liberty and beat on their Police, Navy and corporate ships for a while and I'm friendly with most, if not all, criminal factions with very few enemies. Now, I can go back to the humpback and leasurly make millions while all the worst criminals just wave to me as I pass. Whole process, from level 1 without cheats... maybe 6-8 hours of game time, quicker with a partner.

If you're only concerned with the Corsairs, you can also pound on the Mollys for the same basic result. Either way, if you beat on one faction long enough you allways have new "friends" you can attack for a while without making enemies.

It all really depends on how you started your game, if you did some low level missions for the Liberty Police/Navy/LSF you can allways just beat on them for a while without making enemies. In fact, if you're really careful you can even attack "friends" to fine tune your rep with other factions, those big juicy freighters are great for that.

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