Why am I losing rep?

[cannibal]

I'm trying to get my rep up with AzTek. Every time I get a couple points of positive rep it just goes away. I'm not doing missions against AzTek, sometimes just staying at an AzTek hotel makes my rep go away. What am I doing wrong and how am I supposed to keep rep?

[grävling]

This is how hotels work. When you stay in one, your positive and negative rep both decrease and tend to 0. How much they decrease depends on how strong they were in the first place -- the more strongly positive or negative your rep, the more it tends to stick. 2 points is nothing; and 2 green lines is also very small -- you need to concentrate on improving your rep with Aztek. 2 things will help. The first is to get a computer that holds more than one job. This will increase the proportion of time spent doing things that increase your rep, vs being in taxis (which just eats up time). And the second is to stop doing things that generate so much heat, so that you don't have to spend so much time in hotels, getting it to pass.

So -- stun the people you are attacking, instead of shooting them dead. The neighbourhoods take less offense. Do package and message delivery, and safe conduct instead of capture and assassinate. The Bar of Birds has some nice-paying safe conduct missions. These missions aren't 0 sum, by the way.. You generate more positive rep for the people you deliver for than you generate negative rep for those you deliver against.

HtH,
Grävling

ps -- less heat with 'stealth exit' too.

[cannibal]

Hmm, that all helps thanks. Frustratingly I just can't get more than 2 rep with Aztek. I do a couple missions, use med packs and stims instead of sleeping to refill HP/MP but I eventualy get exausted and have to sleep. Then my rep goes back to zero. The rep just simply evaporates as fast as I can earn it.

[Tenebrous Pirate]

I am willing to bet your main issue is that you take missions that move you far away from AzTech territory, so it is taking you a long time to get back for more missions. So, you get tired quicker.

Try and cherry pick the missions not just for deliveries, but so that you can also stay close by and return quickly to get another mission and thus more rep before you have to rest again.

This is where having a 2+ job computer like gravling suggests is helpful, you have to make fewer trips.

If the rep is really that important to you though, there is something else you can do...

As long as you don't mind missing a bit of XP, you can keep doing missions for AzTech after you are exhausted. This will make you miss out on XP, but you should still get some rep out of it.

[grävling]

Try this pattern:

Get a 2 or 3 job computer.

Taxi to Dorchester, to the Church of Faith, Fury and Retribution. Take jobs and cancel the ones you do not want until you get jobs against AzTek. These all go to North Square. They pay great.

Taxi to North Square and do these jobs. Go to the Bar of Birds. Take jobs against Yakuza, the same way you did in Dorchester. These all go to Copley Square. They pay great.

Taxi to Copley Square and do these jobs. End up in the Yakuza Gambling Den. Take jobs against Fennian and KH that send you to Fennian land. These pay fair-to-good, and besides you wanted to go to Dorchester anyway, plus they are part of the strategy of
keeping your rep up in Yakuza land.

Finally, go to (first Old Waterfront if you have jobs there and then) Dorchester and do the jobs.

Repeat.

You will increase your rep with AzTek, Yakuza, and Fennian, every time you go around the cycle. You leak bad rep with KH, watch this if you care, and go take some small jobs for them to get it to 0 if you end up making them unhappy with you. Nobody else is effected by this pattern, and so will be tending to 0 as you use it.

Notes

1 -- buying a safehouse or 2 in Dorchester when you can afford it really helps. Sleeping in North Square is no problem, but there is only one hotel in Copley Square and 0 in Dorchester.

2 -- Fennian HQ does not show up on the taxi map. Take the taxi to Sacred Heart, next door, instead.

3 -- Many of the Connectors in KH land are not working for KH. If you are trying to work off bad rep with them, make sure the connector you are working for isn't connecting for some other outfit while being based in KH land.

If you try this one, let me know how this strategy works for you.

Grävling

EDIT: for people who are reading old posts to see if they answer current questions -- since 6.15 I haven't found a job at FF&R that goes to North Square. You will have to use the less well paying one from the Howling Sea Inn in Old Waterfront to North Square instead. And this cycle leaks bad rep to Yakashima, as well, since the jobs to Copley Square are against Yakashima, but in Yakuza neighbourhoods (or rather all to the same one)

EDIT AGAIN: FF&R just gabve me a job to deliver to North Square. So maybe it was just a case of 'random is clumpy'?.

[cannibal]

That rotation worked very well. Thanks! I got my sniper riffle an now I'm happy.

[grävling]

Great! Thank you for letting me know. Happy sniping!

[grävling]

Note: since 6.15 I haven't found a single job at FF&R to North Square. Try the Howling Sea Inn instead. (and FF&R is now a welcome source of low-level Fennian jobs, something that the neighbourhood was lacking).

[fallen]

cannibal - another suggestion is that only high power Cyber Knights should be trying to work outside of the gang area. It can take a little longer to come up in the streets, but it can be much safer. Working for the Yakuza or Knight Horizon is a nice step up in pay grade, but prevents you from facing really dangerous opposition in your main "territory."

Glad that the advice given here helped you to happy (sniping) place.

[grävling]

Jan 6, 2012 10:58:22 GMT -5 fallen said:

cannibal - another suggestion is that only high power Cyber Knights should be trying to work outside of the gang area. It can take a little longer to come up in the streets, but it can be much safer. Working for the Yakuza or Knight Horizon is a nice step up in pay grade, but prevents you from facing really dangerous opposition in your main "territory."

Glad that the advice given here helped you to happy (sniping) place.

I've always found the corps to be much safer than KH and Yakuza-land for the 'I don't
have enough armour to not give a damn' sort of player, and even after I have dermal 3 and the best sort of armour I still die by Yakuza far more than I die by anyone else. its athletics 5 or more that I find is the need in corps land.

Grävling

[fallen]

Escaping is much harder these days, especially as the Yakuza, dogs, some drone types are all very fast. Athletics is a must, especially for Runners. We toned down the Yakuza at one point by splitting their soldiers into those with heavy pistols and those with Uzi... they are still some of the worst. However, BS, and KH boast some majorly deadly firepower in their soldiers as well.

The best advice (EDIT: for a conservative player who does not want to die or is playing Brutal): stay in the slums until you are ready.

[grävling]

Jan 6, 2012 21:27:24 GMT -5 fallen said:

Escaping is much harder these days, especially as the Yakuza, dogs, some drone types are all very fast. Athletics is a must, especially for Runners. We toned down the Yakuza at one point by splitting their soldiers into those with heavy pistols and those with Uzi... they are still some of the worst. However, BS, and KH boast some majorly deadly firepower in their soldiers as well.

The best advice (EDIT: for a conservative player who does not want to die or is playing Brutal): stay in the slums until you are ready.

My problem with your advice is that it seems to indicate that KH and Yakuza are mid-range things -- start with the gangers in the slums, then move to Yakuza and KH and BS, finally take on jobs in corps land. But I am finding that it is better to start in the slums, but then branch out into corps land -- when your athletics is good enough, naturally. Because it's harder to survive the Yakuza than the AzTeka -- the red shirts will get you every damn time if you let them have enough opportunity.

Indeed my strategy always contains a time of ' wake up in some hotel' -- take taxi to the Yakuza Gambling Den in Copley Square -- take 3 jobs which pretty much always go to Fennian land or to Los V -- take taxi out of there -- most conveniently, there is one in house -- do the jobs -- repeat

until rep in Yakuza land is 16 or more.. Because at brutal you _just don't want to meet_ those Yakuza Assassins, until, well, you are well enough along in the game that you do not need anybody's advice for anything. :-)

Grävling

[Cory Trese]

That sounds like your report and our balancing attempts are not in alignment.

We will revisit the monsters in the security forces.

[grävling]

The red armoured KH human warriors are also on my list of 'things I would least like to meet' -- much prefer AzTek or Mars blue suits to them. Except that the blue suits tend to come in large numbers, but one for one, I'd prefer a blue suit every time.

[fallen]

grävling - are you playing a Cyber Sword?

[EDIT] I ask because you have mentioned it on other threads. I have been spending a lot of time fighting in the Yakuza territory around this thread and also know the fear of the red-shirt assassins However, I did find that by stocking up on a big gun with nice range (an AK-32 to be exact) that I can deal with them almost every time. The major risk is then to any Runners who are with me who still can't and might get whacked before I can reach them.

If they get shots at you, they pretty consistently ding you. I also always Dodge when they get a shot at me, but use superior Athletics, AP, and equal range to insure that doesn't happen much. Curious if a major factor in your trouble is the desire to stun them out of combat in hand-to-hand.