Trading and notoreity gain - always works? Sometimes?

[Tadkadal]

Specifically, I'm having trouble gaining at all with the Boron with the Humble Merchant start.I've been following CdrDave's walkthrough series for X3TC, and have found it really helpful - right up until he suggests upgrading my vessel's shields, which I'd love to do, but the station I'm hoping requires a higher rep with the Boron for purchases.

I've run goods from within and into / out of Boron sectors, and yet I'm not getting any notoreity gain at all - it's still sitting there at Trusted Courtier 0%, with no budge for any trade actions. Is this normal? I know missions get you more reputation, but trading should move the needle at least a little, right?

[Patastrophic]

I got the impression from running a small trade fleet for some time that reputation gains from trading are very very small. They are definitely present but you can get TONS more rep from completing missions. It really doesn't even compare.

[John Hadley]

I have gained respect from the Boron by manually trading with them even with a ship with only 5 cargo. Maybe automated trade runs do not increase their respect, only trading that you do yourself?

I can run back and forth between the energy plant in Queens Harbor and the bio gas factory right next to it buying and selling 4 energy cells at a time in my Octopus which has 5 cargo space and I will gain a few percentage points every lap or two. The reward for completing a mission is probably something like 10 times more but I've never needed to do missions with the Suicidal Squid get increases in my status.

[Patastrophic]

Hmm, maybe you get more from manual trading? I am positive you get tiny amounts for automated trading as I've seen my rep go up levels with some races while I was not interacting with them in any way as a result of my automated traders.

Or maybe there's a point where you gain less percentage per run as you increase in rank? It's not like I've had to do it more than once at this point, so I haven't really tested extensively.

[Kuromaru_]

Defend the station or patrol type missions seem to work the best for me. Or just do taxi missions.

[Tadkadal]

I finally, finally managed to break through. Seemingly randomly I started getting reputation credit for the same runs I'd been doing for a while. Weird, but eh, it works now.

[CTHOMP]

I believe that somewhere I read that the first few ranks of notariety are very slow to go, but once you get going thigns go up a little faster.

[John Hadley]

I think its the other way around. You gain faction standing much faster when you have low standing with them than when you have high standing. I have used this to my advantage when failing abandoned ship retrieval missions on purpose to keep the ships for myself. You get a reputation hit when you do it, but then it only takes a very small number of station trades to gain it back if you are close to being an enemy to them.

It does not appear to matter how many resources you trade for the faction standing gain, so I run around in a very fast ship and buy a full load of energy then sell one unit of it to every station for a few mins and I gain back the lost standing. One trade may gain 50% of the level when they don't like you much, but if you are higher up it becomes much smaller, under 5% by the time you are a few ranks higher than the middle rank. You can also gain faction standing by buying ship upgrades from their stations.

[CTHOMP]

I guess I figured race relations were similar to corporation relations. In the guide
http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=268342

under part IV. it talks about ranks and increase/decrease and at start the amounts are small buy later they are larger. But it does makes sense that it would be easier to get ranks faster with races while low and tougher as you higher up their ranks. I am not sure as I maxed up rep with the other races a while ago.