How to salvage reputation after a story mission tanks it?

[Aranador]

Sooo - very early on, you do some story missions, and you get negative rep with the local faction. With negative rep, they hate you and wont let you trade, repair, heal, or buy fuel (depending on how much hate)

I am trying to be the sneaky everyone loves me spy, but I seriously need to refuel this ship all the time as it's tanks empty faster than my bladder after 2 litres of coca cola, and of course my spy mission takes 30 zillion attempts because I have no clue how to convince the game I want that card and I need even more fuel. It would be much easier if I could be friends with the locals and fuel here, but - how do I build positive rep when no one will talk to me ?

I am good at boarding actions though. Those rock. Pity I always need to refuel my ship after, and I loose reputation because THEY ATTACKED ME and apparently defending yourself is a no-no - heaven forbid if you take a little water to offset the cost of the damage their unprovoked attack did.

[Trese Brothers]

@aranador -- I think it is important to get used to having enemies. The game's balance is not setup for you to be friends with everyone. So, that' s a good starting point.

1. Consider upgrading your ship with a big fuel tank.
2. Consider upgrading your ship with an Orbital Fuel Scoop which will reduce the fuel cost of orbital operations.
3. Patrol can be a good way to raise reputation with a local Faction. Help them protect their system and you can gain back rep pretty quickly.
4. Find a Prince or someone else who can offer a Pardon. They are expensive, but if your Rep isn't too low its doable.
5. If you are spying on a system, don't expect them to stay friendly long. You'll need to find a nearby place where you can refuel and come back again.

A new Fuel Tank, new Orbital Scoop are big adds you could mod your ship to be a better spy.

Also, learn Talents (E-Tech, Spy) that let you manipulate the card game so you get the rewards you need faster with less rounds of play.

[Aranador]

Coolio - I have never seen a fuel scoop for sale, so I will keep an eye out. Of course, not actually being able to put the scoop on because you have to take some other vital component off will be a problem :P

I honestly get the feeling you are supposed to grind money missions and buy a new ship before doing any of the story though.

I had two card swap thingies, although it seems you can only use one at a time, so the card game seems to just come down to total random chance? My base skills and attributes have no influence on getting the good results (I know they can save me from the bad results - sometimes :P )

Buy yeah, I was basically doing the second story mission, spying for the lady at the court. I could do a round or 3, but then I would need to refuel/repair, so would jump to another system - almost always get attacked by a ship, run away taking some damages, run out of fuel and have to do an emergency warp, and limp to the next system over, repair/refuel, then come back. I think for a spy type of game style, keeping people on your good side is the trick.

I have yet to try the patrol thing, as it didnt seem a spy thing to do, but I ma gunna try it next time.

Much still to learn about how the game system works so I can make more informed decisions.

[six-P-]

It's pretty viable to start with a class that prioritizes a good ship, though the 550k tier ships and the 375k tier ships don't seem to vary wildly in power until you dump a ton of money into upgrades.

It almost seems like the base 550k ships are only a touch more powerful the 375k ships but have more potential upgrades.

[stretch]

Once you upgrade your ship to the biggest one your fuel issues are pretty much over. It has real fuel tanks.

It has room for another 6 crew and an officer which really helps.

It doesn't pay to stay with the starter jobs for your crew.

You will want diplomats for rep as these are fairly critical if you don't want to make enemies fast.

Spies help you spy.

Merchants. Explorers. etc etc....

All these guys have job talents that help with everything that is crushing starter players. It all gets so very much easier after a while.

Grab an extra doctor as well.

When you upgrade your ship many modules weigh more than their weaker versions so look out for the few modules that lessen the weight of your ship so you can fit better and heavier guns.

Contacts often sell you crew and officer armour plus officer accessories. Watch out for them.

I fight. Alot. I often get 2 or 3 fights per zone. Seems to get worse in zones that hate you oddly enough. I have no trouble at all with fighting so much anymore. Not like at the start where it cost so much to recover from a fight. Now it's easy. Crew and talents make the difference.

It's important to keep friendly with some factions but doing missions for your friends often loses you rep in other places. I have 3 factions I am friends with and 3 who want me dead. Every zone so far has someone with a base in it that will let me refuel so I recommend a balance of friend vs foe. You can steal lots of fuel once you have the crew and officers with the right skills but you cannot count on it.

You can pay wages everywhere even if they hate you.

Merchants and diplomats help with crew morale. Look out for their talents to buy especially wages vs morale talents.

Make contacts. I cannot stress enough how useful they are.

Spying and selling intel or finding it via exploring is the easiest way to get your rep up with contacts. Often selling a new contact 10 intel is enough to open up their starting offers quite well.

With a good crew balance of talents it's possible to fly around for ages without having your crew lose morale. You can fight and not lose crew after taking 2 hits. All the things that seem impossible at first become trivial soon enough.

Unfortunately the early game is very, very hard but it gets easier. It's seems impossible but it's not.

[Aranador]

Yah morale has never been the issue for me. Different play styles produce different results, which is of course fantastic.