Can someone help me with the trade system?

[Gastberend]

I am supposed to pump the Profit Factor, that is Ok, no problem max efficiency in all colonies.
But I dont quite understand how I can trade with the different factions, for example I want to buy the improved heavy bolter from Ryza, the problem is that even IF I give her all the loot I find I will still not be able to reach such reputation level to ever buy it.

If I trade with other factions I will never get those high tier items, for example the Drussians have power armor ( great of my tank ), Ryza has a improve heavy bolter that would greatly increase the DPS of my heavy gunner.

Another thing is the imperial Navy, even If I defeat most of the fleets I never get enough loot to go beyond 6-7 level, I did build facilities to boost some of the reputation with the Navy but it is certainly not enough.

Overall I really like this concept of stop trading junk items like Pathfinder, and engange in a reputation scheme, I hope other RPG pick up the concept, but I still dont quite understand it I dont know I am suppose to reach 30 reputation with Ryza for example.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

You aren't going to be able to get to max rep with all of the factions.

What you should do is pick one faction* that will be your primary focus. For that faction, you gift to them everything that they will accept to raise your reputation with them as much as possible. Then, pick another faction as your secondary focus. Gift them everything that they will take that the first faction won't take. Then a third faction that gets the dregs.

(* One faction other than Imperial Navy. The items they take aren't taken by anyone else, and they don't take any items that anyone else takes, so they are their own thing and not in competition with the others for your favor.)

That will get you as high as possible with your first choice, and pretty high with your second choice. You third choice you might get some low-tier stuff, but you shouldn't count on them for anything, and the fourth one you'll probably never get much or any rep with and so won't get much out of them. A few tier zero items.

The alternative, to spread your favor around, will cut you out of all the higher-rep items. You can do that if you want, and you should still be able to finish the game, but it seems like the inferior choice.

[talemore]

The concept been around since the invention of trading.

We give junk to the king and in return the king gives a coin who is representing value. Today that coin changed to bitcoin but kings had special coins with certain value.

One dollar coin was enough to buy up a whole store.

Then material access limited which made it hard to obtain more coins. With many competitiors the solution was to soap the value into fragments. The soap water we use today is because more people share less items than what a king would have compared to the people before the industrial revolution.

States do trade like this where example junk is traded in exchange for services that they become relying on the services that some job tasks are depending on providing services in exchange they take our junk.

2 dollar coins and 1K coins or supercoins as we may call it is to increase the buying power.

If everyone goes to the store and buy an item for $1 the value of the item can either go down or stay in value but never increase. Stimulanses are created through credit cards as the purchase exceed the value. Or through gift cards who is exchanged for products.

We could call it gift card trading, no matter if the value exceed or is underneath they will provide the value of your junk. The gift card says up to 100 junk items you get 1 exclusive premium ball. No matter if you used up the entire value you can only use the supercoin once.

You can not split the coin that is why coins were used. The split of virtual coins is destroying value and as example The fall of the Rome empire was the mistrust on the value of the coin.

it works here because there are no material limitations. Once you can not provide enough material there is no way to provide a coin because it represents 100 junk items. It is why if people would stop working to get more coins there would be no value.

The goal is to give material to the ruler who can use steel and glass to build houses. In return the ruler can provide a special Bill.

States don't have money. They have obligations to ensure everything that is for sale is sold. The less coins the people have the more coins the state need to provide the services. It is no wonder why it is in the interest to make sure people don't have afford.

They are like a lord and your are a slave to the factions.
20 tomatoes for $1 is 20 items for 1

Let that sink in that as soon you get more items for $1 you get bang for the buck and they're given a lot of your items by having a monopoly on supply.

[pascal.difolco]

Is there somewhere a full list of what faction offers, and which are the best ones ?

[Thariorn]

In regards to the Imperial nacy, I've noticed that most void combat trophies are not added to your cargo (therefore your trade goods) automatically, whihch is why for the longest time of Chapter 2 i could not gain any rep with the navy.
Check your inventory to see if you got like 8 aeldary void ship sails or what not, because that has been the case for me.

For the other 4 trade parties, you could travel unsafe/dangerous warp routes to farm battle encounters for like 200-300 rep each fight (and each 4+ loading screens), but that will still take A LOT of time.
Focus on a single faction if you want their top tier loot, build Colony projects for the same faction to increase rep, do their quest, do their rep activity (i.e., explorators wanna know about scanned planets).

The question at the end of all this is, will it be worth it to yout to autistically game the system for an Armour with +4 extra deflection or a weapon that deals 25% more dmg?

[corisai]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

The alternative, to spread your favor around, will cut you out of all the higher-rep items. You can do that if you want, and you should still be able to finish the game, but it seems like the inferior choice.

Real alternative is toybox and generous "gifts" of rep to yourself.

Being unable to plan what you're going to take (as second half of items hidden from you in Act2) is utterly and completely bad design choice. It became even worse as Act3-4 have less items while shops require much more rep to max it completely compared with maxing them in Act2.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by corisai:

Real alternative is toybox and generous "gifts" of rep to yourself.

I'm never going to advocate or offer mods or hacks as a legitimate option for interacting with a game system working as designed. Yes, you can set yourself to have whatever amount of favor you want with whatever faction or factions you want, without doing anything to earn it... but if you're going to do that, why bother even playing the game. Or, if you are going to play the game like that, why bother boosting rep when you can just straight up give yourself any item high rep might earn you?

[HuffingJenkem]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

The alternative, to spread your favor around, will cut you out of all the higher-rep items. You can do that if you want, and you should still be able to finish the game, but it seems like the inferior choice.

Real alternative is toybox and generous "gifts" of rep to yourself.

Being unable to plan what you're going to take (as second half of items hidden from you in Act2) is utterly and completely bad design choice. It became even worse as Act3-4 have less items while shops require much more rep to max it completely compared with maxing them in Act2.

It wouldn't be so bad if the game mechanics weren't so completely focused on gear based builds.

[corisai]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

I'm never going to advocate or offer mods or hacks as a legitimate option for interacting with a game system working as designed.

Except game is trying to trick me into spreading reputation between 2 factions (as for Holy/Heretical/Xeno artifacts we have 2 factions who want them) and I have no knowledge that it's a trap? Seriously?

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by HuffingJenkem:

It wouldn't be so bad if the game mechanics weren't so completely focused on gear based builds.

Based on what I read on the forum here, I think it is more accurate to say that the game mechanics are completely focused on generating so many extra turns before the enemy acts that the enemies are cleared before they can do anything. At that point, gear becomes a minor consideration.

For those of us who have not achieved that situation, gear is certainly important. There may be some builds that rely heavily on specific gear, but I believe that there are also effective builds that do not. So while you might want that shiny set of heavy armor that some faction is promising at some ridiculous reputation level, chances are your build is going to work fine with the heavy armor that you find on your adventures, because most of the power of your characters comes from the character themselves and not from their gear.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

I'm never going to advocate or offer mods or hacks as a legitimate option for interacting with a game system working as designed.

Except game is trying to trick me into spreading reputation between 2 factions (as for Holy/Heretical/Xeno artifacts we have 2 factions who want them) and I have no knowledge that it's a trap? Seriously?

Being offered bad choices is part of the role-playing experience. If the game never offered you any choice except the best one then there would be no choices and the game would play itself.

If you want to use the existence of bad choice options as your excuse for modding in extra benefits for your character... well, it's your game, you should be able to do that. Have fun, I say. I'm not going to advocate that, though, because I feel that making choices and dealing with consequences within the framework of the game is more fun (assuming actual bugs are not a factor, which is another situation).

[corisai]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Being offered bad choices is part of the role-playing experience. If the game never offered you any choice except the best one then there would be no choices and the game would play itself.

Bad STORY choices. When game offer you two talents and one is 999 times better then other one - it's bad design.

Same when game bait you to waste limited single-use resources on something "good" and unlock much better option in a next chapter. Same, bad design.

What about Power Armor Proficiency? When you could pick it? And when you could get a first Power Armor, huh?

Simply - when you NEED post-game knowledge to achieve a pretty minor success (maxing 1 faction out of 4) it IS a bad design.

[Lee]

Originally posted by corisai:

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

Being offered bad choices is part of the role-playing experience. If the game never offered you any choice except the best one then there would be no choices and the game would play itself.

Bad STORY choices. When game offer you two talents and one is 999 times better then other one - it's bad design.

Same when game bait you to waste limited single-use resources on something "good" and unlock much better option in a next chapter. Same, bad design.

What about Power Armor Proficiency? When you could pick it? And when you could get a first Power Armor, huh?

Simply - when you NEED post-game knowledge to achieve a pretty minor success (maxing 1 faction out of 4) it IS a bad design.

This is accurate. It's simply bad design. I stopped getting rep from a faction because they didn't have anything else I needed, only to find that their inventory gets expanded after act 3 and some of the best stuff for me was in their expanded inventory. By that time it was too late to get it. You need meta knowledge to plan for gear.

[tempest.of.emptiness]

Originally posted by corisai:

Bad STORY choices.

Which faction or factions you choose to build favor with is a story choice. I'm fairly certain that it is possible to play the game without taking any gear from any of the factions (with the possible exception of the Imperial Fleet, but they are not in competition with the others for favor anyway).

The idea that you HAVE to have max rep with all of the factions to play the game, and that because that isn't possible you HAVE to cheat is just an excuse to cheat.

Originally posted by corisai:

Simply - when you NEED post-game knowledge to achieve a pretty minor success (maxing 1 faction out of 4) it IS a bad design.

You don't NEED post-game knowledge to decide to focus on one faction. Everyone has the option to do that, without any knowledge of what is to come.

You are seeing that, with post-game knowledge, focusing one faction is the best approach, and then wanting that information to be given to you up front. That's like asking the game to hand you the "right" decision on a silver platter, instead of allowing you to possibly make mistakes.

Originally posted by corisai:

What about Power Armor Proficiency? When you could pick it? And when you could get a first Power Armor, huh?

This at least we can agree on. They should have just hidden that talent, or else put in some more power armor gear options.

When it comes to dealing with a character stuck having taken PAP, I wouldn't have a problem with Toyboxing out the talent in favor of another one. I would have a problem with Toyboxing in a set of Power Armor, though. Perhaps it is a subtle difference that others might not see, but the two are very different to me... but anyway, it's your game so play it how you want.

[corisai]

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

You don't NEED post-game knowledge to decide to focus on one faction. Everyone has the option to do that, without any knowledge of what is to come.

Except I need?

Each of most valuable cargo have 2 factions that want them. That easily lead to conclusion "pick 2 out of 4 factions". But it's don't going to work at all.

Originally posted by tempest.of.emptiness:

You are seeing that, with post-game knowledge, focusing one faction is the best approach

Not "the best one" but ONLY one, as without focusing since Act2 - I'm unable to complete even a single faction.

Please don't mention "farming" orange routes or repeatable expendables from colonies. It's completely sick.