Reputation dump

[constantvitalrivet]

So I’ve taken the approach of trying to be on good terms with most factions- I’ve got between +80 and +500 with 8 of 9. But I’ve decided to embrace my identity as a “legendary crime lord” with Rychart at -900 and dropping. So in trying not to piss off the other factions, and not lose my level 4 trade permits, I have chosen Rychart to concentrate my reputation loss in taking missions where there’s an adversary. Is there any other way? I got deep in the hole with them early on from the story missions against Aetaan Char, and I decided it was kind of fun to have one faction to be my arch enemy. But a lot of missions seem to result in a bigger reputation loss for the “against” faction than the gain from the “for” faction, so it seems inevitable that if you run a lot of missions you will constantly be in the hole somewhere. Is it possible to be on good terms with everybody? Notwithstanding an offer of $3.2M for a pardon that is. Deepest I came back from was -100 against steel song after I kinda screwed them with one of these story missions, but at -900 I’m imagining patrolling and spying and selling intel for many years without really climbing out of that hole. Are they going to deny me landing at -1000 or something?

[drspendlove]

They will never deny landing. That would be a violation of Shalun law. It is definitely easier to upset someone than to make them happy with you. It is possible to be friendly with everyone but it relies on a few tricks:

1. Early game, get into a positive rep cycle with acknowledging folks.
2. Take reputation loss reducing talents and ensure they aren't on cooldown when you complete mission steps.
3. Seek out active alliance and trade alliance conflicts and participate in them before they expire.
4. Seek out a merchant contact. They often give missions that only give rep with their own faction without pissing anyone off.

Continual use of these four are sufficient to get positive rep with everyone.

[brentaur]

The talents that prevent reputation loss are easy to overlook, but they really make a difference. They will often reduce the loss to -1 or -2 instead of -5 or more. It really adds up. 1 or 2 step missions only incur losses once or twice, so you can avoid taking missions with many steps. If your ship and crew can handle it, you can always patrol worlds of the factions that don't like you to rdeuce negative rep a bit here and there. Finally, if you have the creds and a contact who offers them in that faction, buy pardons (if you can, do it at -100 or so, frequently). And then go back to running missions against them.