Independent "Rep"

[roemann]

Cory,
I have long been troubled by the lack of any way to gauge my status with Independents. The only easy I have come up with is to observe the frequency and level of bounty hunter encounters. Please consider adding some way to gauge this status in future releases.

In sort of a similar vein, I thought it might be nice to have an actual "wanted" status, including a figure representing the bounty on the captains head, and whether he's wanted dead or alive, or just captured.

[Cory Trese]

Since Independents are independent and each Captain, Crew and Planet stand alone their is no status to gauge. In the simulation system, any element that is not assigned to one of the six Factions is run through the Independent logic. In ST, being an independent is simply not being any faction.

The game explicitly does not track any status with Independents. Frequency and level of bounty hunter encounters is actually more related to rumors and conflicts, which you can view under Status.

In the end the game's economic and political simulator does not have a way to track or store any independent status and it won't be something that we can add to Star Traders RPG in any future release.

There is a Wanted status, stored for the two super-factions (syndicates and clans) and can be seen in the Factions / Reputation page. It isn't as simple as a figure representing the bounty or the dead/alive because the actual Wanted status you're asking about is a modifier for the Faction status.

A Faction that is neutral will behave differently if the Captain has the Wanted status for that Faction's super-faction. A Faction that was moderately hostile may simply turn the Captain over to the super-faction. This will have substantial impact on your interactions with the members of the super-faction as well as Independent Ships who see the Wanted flag as a pay day.

Thanks for posting, hope the details provided help clear up the confusion and questions!