Raising rep in Pearl

[Aures]

I am stuck doing missions for the Pearl Navy and I need some advice. Combat is great, but I have had my fill of AI swarms for now. I bought a station license at Arvoch command in Pearl and I have been doing ace and one waypoint patrol missions for the navy to raise my rep. So far I have done about 25 missions in a row averaging about 10 fighters each and I have personally killed over 150 guild and rebel ships in that time. That has raised my navy rep from the low 20s to 67. I want to explore the new universe a bit (first stop Sol) but I am stuck in Pearl until I can finish raising my rep.

At this rate I will probably have to do a little over 50 missions to raise my global rep a rank. Is that about what is expected to raise rep one rank in one system or is there a more efficient way I could be doing it? Some missions don't seem to raise my rep at all and then I will get a boost of like 2-6% from one mission. Presumably the big multi waypoint patrols give a bigger rep boost, but unless it is out of proportion to the number of ships you kill I would rather be able to save after killing a dozen ships.

I have about 6 fleet members from various factions. Does it matter what factions they are from? How do kills by your fleet affect your reputation? Every time I go on a mission random navy, energy and mining ships show up and start attacking me as well. I wouldn't want to be hurting my rep by setting my fleet to attack hostiles or missing out on rep increases because my fleet is doing the killing.

It is weird that while on a contract for the navy navy ships show up and shoot you while completely ignoring the rebels/guild ships. Also weird that the AI seems to fire missiles exclusively at me and ignores my fleet for the most part. Every hostile contact wants to follow you to the end of the universe you and empty their missile bays as quickly as possible. Its like the pied piper is stowing away in your ship and he has a big target painted on him. Don't those ships have to be getting on with whatever they were doing before they spotted me? Ah, the wonderful limitations of AI scripts.

Is there a more efficient way of targeting the ships for a contract? When I have a couple of rebel/guild fighters left in a big swarm of energy/navy/mining ships it is a pain to go through the target list to find a guild/rebel ship. And even then it could just be a random ship that turned up rather than a contract related ship.

Any pointers on rep raising would be welcome as well, even if it is just a link to a thread with the relevant info. What I have read doesn't indicate that raising rep is such a grind and I hope I'm not doing anything wrong. If it is meant to be this hard then fine, I will finish raising my rep doing what I have been doing. I will be glad I did it but will think very hard before doing it again. But I would like the piece of mind of knowing that I am doing the right thing before starting another marathon combat mission session. I will probably start playing around with a deploy constructor to mix it up a bit.

I never bothered raising my rep a rank in Legends so this is an area I don't have a lot of experience in beyond the basic theory.

[Maarschalk]

LOL...I'm glad you brought it up. I'm in the excact same boat as you are, well relatively speaking......

I have also a License at Arvoch Command and trying to raise my rep in Pearl and I can say you are doing better then I'm.....:P:P:P:P I got my rep up with the navy from 20% to 49%. In legend it was much more easy to increase your rep quickly I had made all the Hostile systems in Legends to good reputation. LOL.

In Mercenary it is more difficult due to many reasons you mentioned which where there also in Legends but not at the same magnitude as Mercenary. In Legends you could use 1 fulcrum torpedo to complete a mission quickly, just launch it at the precise time and momment in the center of the 12 enemies and upon detonation boom mission accomplished....I have managed to do this only once so far in Mercenary all th othe attempts have failed using fulcrum torpedos. In Legends it was also easier because of the short recharging time of the Excalibur. You can complete missions still the same way but you have to be more patient and it takes longer unless you join MP and do missions together as a group. But in MP it will not change or affect your rep in SP.....Yes and the swarms of other ships mixing in with the enemies is very annoying.....I think this is intentional....I'm not sure yet if you get a good reputation as in Legends when you destroy just the rebels and the guilds in pearl since I'm also new at this in Mercenary. It might be that the Guilds are in control of Pearl so to get a good rep in pearl you might need to get rid of the navy, energy, and miners, the news console seems to hint that way and also the I.M.G. quest...LOL...well there is one way to find out.....I'll continue to improve my rep with navy for now and see what happens and let me know when you succeed what happened...LOL....:P:P:P

[Aures]

Thanks Maars, glad to know I am on the right track. Also cool that you are doing the exact same thing as me, great minds and all that.

I just did a little experiment, looks like having your fleets help you in rep raising missions is self defeating. I noticed that when I took a contract my first kill raised my rep from 67% to 68%. So I self destructed and took a new contract. I let my fleet take care of all the hostiles, didn't even fire my excals. At the start of the contract my rep was 67% and at the end it was 67%. Next contract I took, first kill took me up to 68%. The 120 odd ships that the AI finished off during my 25 contracts apparently counted towards my rep not at all.

Time to fire my fleet and go back to soloing. Should also help my bank balance, atm I am slowly losing money. I would just about be breaking even but I am paying for repairs rather than waiting for my C3 to fix the damage. I have my starmaster in a hanger in the Pearl war zone so that will still eat at my balance but I should still make a little profit. My cash went down from around 4.5 to 3.5 million (most of my money atm is tied up in some expensive equipment stored in the Pearl war zone hanger) just from doing those 25 missions.

If I had done all those contracts solo I would probably have raised my rep by now.

On the flip side, at least I wasn't losing rep from my fleet attacking navy and energy ships.

[Maarschalk]

Yes AI kills even if hired do not count towards your rep they just might make it easier to complete the contract and help you raise your rank quicker then your rep...LOL...:P:P:P:P

[Aures]

Wow I finally finished after more than 500 kills. I now have a moderate rep in Pearl. I will post more details later, right now its time to splore.

[Maarschalk]

Wow, I got to 55% with the navy...LOL....I figured how to use fulcrum torpedos now in EM to complete missions. You have to be more precise then in Legends with your distance and timing and occassionally you will miss 1 or 2 enemies or they jump away and you have to go hunt them.....:P:P:P:P
Oh yes, and another cool thing is the Cannon heat sink. It is defenitely a must have, makes shooting down enemies much faster and easier....:P:P:P:P

[Zenith]

On the subject of reputation, I'm currently trying to raise my reputation in Rucker (for whatever reason). It's currently at fair, and I have 91% Energy, 81% Navy, 34% Rebels, 16% Guild, and 80% Miners. What do I need to advance it?

[Marvin]

First, stay in the system until you get the increase in global rep. To do that, you'll need to do reduce your rep with rebels and the guild ... usually by completing energy, miner and navy contracts against rebels and guild.

[Zenith]

Yeah, that's what I've been doing, what specific values are they looking for percentage wise? I'm down to 34% with Rebels, and 16% Guild.

[Marvin]

Lower. Much lower.

[Zenith]

Bah! Low as in 5% or less?

[Maarschalk]

Yes, sometimes lower then 5 %....LOL.....:P:P:P:P

[Ravenfeeder]

I don't know about Mercenary, but, in Legends you could improve your rep just by killing reds. Kill about 200 of them and all of a sudden the Navy becomes friendly. Don't know if it is the same in EM.

[Maarschalk]

No, in EM it is much tougher...and takes longer......:P

[Aures]

I still had like 30% rep with the rebels and guild when my navy and energy hit 100%. I did a few more contracts for the navy (and one for miners) but mainly I just killed random reds until my rebel/guild rep had bottomed out.

Once I hit like 80% navy I stopped seeing red navy and energy ships. That made things whole lot easier, I was able to breeze through contracts rather than patiently pick off the rebel/guild ships while avoiding the navy/energy ships. The only random hostiles that joined were more rebel/guild ships, so I switched to hanging round for a while after I finished a contract to kill any remaining hostiles. I probably could have stopped doing contracts completely after I hit 80% navy rep, might have made my energy/navy rep max out at around the same time as my rebel/guild bottomed out.

I am glad I ditched my fleet, my flying had a got a bit sloppy with them. I am now back in much better form, it was good to start plowing through hostiles again. Once I started just killing any reds that showed up things went much quicker, racked up a couple of kills every minute. However, killing randoms rebel/guild when I was still getting random red navy/energy would have been much more difficult. You have to avoid the hostiles you don't want to kill, remember to check your next target after a kill, try not to blow up the wrong ship with excals left after a kill and get out of the area after a little while as there will be a big bunch of navy ships. Could use a fleet to help thin out the navy/energy ships, but they tend to go after your current target.

It was probably a good thing I used a fleet with the earlier missions, the first one or two after I ditched them were really hairy. I will probably raise my rep to good in Pearl at some point, but I will think very hard before trying to raise another hostile system to moderate. Seems like the procedure I used already is ok, but next time I will have a 15 ships fleet. I will also try to get them to kill navy/energy rather than rebels/guild as much as possible. Once I stop seeing red energy/navy I will just randomly kill rebels/guild, taking a mission occasionally if there happen to be none in the area.

Raising from moderate to fair or fair to good is probably also a lot easier than hostile to moderate, one of the reasons I will try it eventually.

Has anyone else raised their rep from hostile to moderate in Pearl since the game release? I assume it was done in beta, but I would get a warm fuzzy feeling if I was the first to do something since the games release. No matter if someone has, but in that case I would like to know who else is a member of of this club. I would also be interested in anyone who has raised their rep from hostile to moderate in another system for the purpose of comparison.

[Zenith]

Originally posted by Maarschalk
Yes, sometimes lower then 5 %....LOL.....:P:P:P:P

Bloody hell, it looks like I'm going to be stuck in Rucker a while longer then.

[Marvin]

Yep. Rucker wasn't tamed in a day.

[Maarschalk]

Originally posted by Aures
I still had like 30% rep with the rebels and guild when my navy and energy hit 100%. I did a few more contracts for the navy (and one for miners) but mainly I just killed random reds until my rebel/guild rep had bottomed out.

Once I hit like 80% navy I stopped seeing red navy and energy ships. That made things whole lot easier, I was able to breeze through contracts rather than patiently pick off the rebel/guild ships while avoiding the navy/energy ships. The only random hostiles that joined were more rebel/guild ships, so I switched to hanging round for a while after I finished a contract to kill any remaining hostiles. I probably could have stopped doing contracts completely after I hit 80% navy rep, might have made my energy/navy rep max out at around the same time as my rebel/guild bottomed out.

I am glad I ditched my fleet, my flying had a got a bit sloppy with them. I am now back in much better form, it was good to start plowing through hostiles again. Once I started just killing any reds that showed up things went much quicker, racked up a couple of kills every minute. However, killing randoms rebel/guild when I was still getting random red navy/energy would have been much more difficult. You have to avoid the hostiles you don't want to kill, remember to check your next target after a kill, try not to blow up the wrong ship with excals left after a kill and get out of the area after a little while as there will be a big bunch of navy ships. Could use a fleet to help thin out the navy/energy ships, but they tend to go after your current target.

It was probably a good thing I used a fleet with the earlier missions, the first one or two after I ditched them were really hairy. I will probably raise my rep to good in Pearl at some point, but I will think very hard before trying to raise another hostile system to moderate. Seems like the procedure I used already is ok, but next time I will have a 15 ships fleet. I will also try to get them to kill navy/energy rather than rebels/guild as much as possible. Once I stop seeing red energy/navy I will just randomly kill rebels/guild, taking a mission occasionally if there happen to be none in the area.

Raising from moderate to fair or fair to good is probably also a lot easier than hostile to moderate, one of the reasons I will try it eventually.

Has anyone else raised their rep from hostile to moderate in Pearl since the game release? I assume it was done in beta, but I would get a warm fuzzy feeling if I was the first to do something since the games release. No matter if someone has, but in that case I would like to know who else is a member of of this club. I would also be interested in anyone who has raised their rep from hostile to moderate in another system for the purpose of comparison.

LOL...I'm getting slowly there...with the limited time I have for playing. Navy up to 62 % in Pearl, did contracts for only Navy and Miners. The strange thing is no matter how many contracts I do for Minners in Pearl they seem to be stuck at 45%. And another strange thing in Pearl is that there seems to be no contracts for Energy....I have yet to get one. Rebels I have down to 50% and Guild seems also stuck at 70% and not moving regardless of how many I destroy..Only Navy and Rebels seems to be affected by my contracts....What is your experience Aures?

[Edited on 9-30-2010 by Maarschalk]

[Aures]

I only did that one contract for the miners after my energy and navy rep had hit 100%. I didn't take note of whether it affected my miner rep or not. Actions taken against the other factions don't affect your miner rep and you don't need to change it to change your global rep. As such, I ignored them and only did contracts for the navy. I have nothing against doing contracts for energy, but I didn't see a single one during my time taking missions from Arvoch command. I see a lot of random energy ships but the only contracts related to them were for guild/rebels acting against them. Might be there are no contracts for energy in Pearl, or maybe just not at Arvoch command for some reason.

My energy rep was usually about 10% lower than my navy rep but they both hit 100% around the same time. So you don't need to do any contracts for energy, navy works just fine. I didn't pay much attention to my energy rep most of the time.

My guild and rebel rep both started above 80% and only went down slowly at first. My rebel rep was at about 20% and guild 32% when I realised I should focus on getting those reps down as my navy/energy rep had been at 100% for a while.

The targets for patrol missions were usually rebels but ace missions had guild ships more often than rebels. My results were consistent with detroying a rebel ship lowering my rebel and guild rep but with less effect for guild than rebel. Visa versa for destroying guild ships. In either case my navy and energy rep was raised.

When my rebel rep hit 9% my guild rep was a fair bit higher, so I started only taking ace missions and those presented me with guild ships. Also, the only random ships that turned up seemed to be guild. I had a similar experience with only random rebels turning up around the patrol contract. But that may have been luck or something to do with my rep. Earlier there was a point where I kept forgetting to check whether my contract was against guild or rebel ships, making it hard to target the ships that could be required for the contract in the middle of the cluster$%#s of random ships that kept developing. So random ships of any faction can turn up and patrol and ace mission can both be for guild or rebel targets.

BTW when I ws at 85% navy I luckily found a contract for a multi waypoint patrol with 5 waypoints but only 15 ships. When I had finished that my navy rep was at 95%. That was the only multi waypoint patrol I did, presumably doing an 84 ship patrol will get you a big rep boost if you can stomach it.

Don't worry, you will probably stop seeing red navy and energy ships after another session or two. Things get much easier and more fun then. You can take down single AI ships really quickly so you can just fly around killing all the random contacts faster than you could rack up kills doing missions. Killing 10-12 ships at a single waypoint for a contract is also a lot easier, it doesn't matter that you don't have time to kill all of them before a bunch of random navy/energy/miner ships show up.

I am not sure what your combat style is like but one of the things I found was that my high speed passes were taking me into more territory (ie I and the cluster$%# following me were slowly drifting across the sector on average) and hence popping up more random contacts. But that was when my form was still sloppy, once I started running rings around my enemies the battlespace was much more stationary and that probably reduced the number of randoms popping up.

[Aures]

Update regarding contracts for the energy faction. I just finished a couple of trading runs and went back to Arvoch command to get into my stored evoch-e. When I docked the first contract was for energy. I said before that I did not encounter a single contract for energy when I was raising my rep from hostile to moderate. I believe that was the case, so either it was just bad luck or energy doesn't start giving you contracts (at least in Pearl at Arvoch Command) until your rep is moderate or better.

If someone does see a contract for Energy while they are hostile in Pearl (or in any hostile system, I haven't been looking for them before now), spare a minute or two to reply.

[PandaBear]

I was about to think that we can not change rep in Pearl. Was going to ask how to do it till I found it here.

My Navy REP are 94% and guild are 7%. I stupidly bride rebels to get their rep% up thinking it would change me rep to fair if I can keep them around 40%+ . Look likt it death tot he rebels from now on.

thanks

[Maarschalk]

Yes, you accept their bribe and then destroy them any way as not to ruin your reputation or contract....LOL...
If the rebels thought they had a chance at you they would not hesitate to unleash all their fire power on you...only when they realise they underestimated you they offer you a bribe...LOL....:P:P:P:P

[Aures]

I think PandaBear was saying he was bribing rebels to get their rep up because he thought it was required to raise his global rep.

Good luck PandaBear. Bottoming out my rebel and guild rep took up the last few hours of my attempt. You probably have a slightly longer road ahead of you.

[PandaBear]

Yes I wad briding the rebels and add them to my fleet. Guess it is time to remove them from the fleet and give them an gone away gift.

[Aures]

And as I found having a fleet help you is counterproductive when it comes to raising rep because their kills don't help raise it. Of course if you can't handle the swarms of navy and energy ships that you don't want to fight a fleet can still be useful. I used a fleet for a fair bit of time in Pearl, if I ever try to raise my rep from hostile again I am going to do it solo and see how I go.