Any reason not to side with northriver?

[Tiberius]

I tried siding with riptide before, and it only gives me a dead avarice and busywork to supply all of those protectyon. It seems the most logical choice for this quest is to side with northriver

[ArcticISAF]

AFAIK Tidebreak has an unlimited amount of protectyon anyway, you don't really need to supply and worry about the protectyon.

Having tried both sides, the first side being Northriver I thought it should be the better choice too. But both missions have you take out a VIG station. If I've got this correct, northriver side - VIG relations stay good until you blast the station, relations go bad during the fight, then they return to -15. And seemed like it just stays there as the missions are over, you've won. You own the sectors but you have a somewhat hostile force sitting in all those areas. Buy a Astrid.

The other way around - VIG starts lowering in relations. You can take care of the designated station and then approach the satellite to pay 15 million to get back to previous relations (even +26). So you can use this opportunity to blast the VIG to smithereens and take over their sectors fully, with the option to restore relations whenever you want. Or don't take over and just restore them after the battle. And you can just steal the two astrids immediately after the decision.

Overall I think the second way, siding against is better, but I could be wrong on some points.

[blackphoenixx]

If you side with Northriver you have to pay for your Astrid and don't get to shoot the annoying brothers in the face.

Otherwise not really. Though it should be noted that you're never required to supply protectyon, Tidebreak will handle it even if you side against Northriver and ignore it.

[Kalisa]

Honestly think siding against northriver is the better option as well, but depends on what your going for in your game, if you side with them, you have to pay 50 mill for an astrid and you only get 1, if it gets destroyed you can buy another for 50 mil, its also in your faction colors instead of the unique paint, and u cant capture the brothers astrids anymore from what i understand, you also dont get any reset to vigor rep, so you do take the rep hit for killing a station, and then you get their defense stations afterwords which imo are pretty worthless. You do get some credits but you pay more for the Astrid then you get from the mission, Going against them lets you do what ever you want to vig and then restore your rep which is great, i usually use this to farm afew Barbarossa's, maybe wipe out afew stations and take a sector or 2 then back up to positive rep. you also get to capture the brothers astrids at no cost, so you get 2 astrids instead of 1, with a custom paint job, and if any die the brothers respawn, Also the protecyon itself can be a good income source if u lean into it.

I personally always go against them because i like to wipe vigor to almost nothing, let argon take all but Windfall III which i keep, then i pay to restore rep and let vigor rebuild but with no sectors directly under their control anymore and with argon at their borders helps keep them in check easier and keep their numbers down, then I lean into helping riptide expand its stations well i make alittle extra from a constant supply of protecyon

[asdf]

Better question is: Any reason to play ToA missions at all?

[DaBa]

Most people make choices in the game based on what they feel they would do in the situation. If you try to metagame and do the thing that is the most beneficial then yeah of course there will always be a single "right" choice.

[DaBa]

Originally posted by asdf:

Better question is: Any reason to play ToA missions at all?

Is there any reason to play X4? IS there any reason to play video games at all?

[ArcticISAF]

Get your own bar/pool/bed in a ship

[DaBa]

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

Get your own bar/pool/bed in a ship

And have the music blast your eardrums at full volume whenever you save the game!

[Donauwelle]

Originally posted by asdf:

Better question is: Any reason to play ToA missions at all?

Barely,
ToA was a big let-down for me as part-time-pirate...

Northriver Plot... well...
Astrid`s design depends on player preferences (for me it looks like some Gucci-blingbling nightmare right out of some Fashionweek BS)
Protectyon as ressource is not worth much . Every other production outperforms it.
And TBH the whole questline is very... A-B'ish....
Doing this quests a 2nd or 3rd time in different saves doenst make it better at all...

Elysian Plot
Is more a Pirate tutorial, quite short, but ok story/plot until you get to the obscenly unrewarding rewards... No spoilers in case you didnt finish it.... but it wasnt good and leaves no impact on anything...


Right now ToA is the DLC id recomand getting at last.... and only to close the gaps on the map.
Its very noticable that this was a Covid DLC and Egosoft as rather conservative German developer had a really hard time making their processes work in Homeoffice.

Still Hoping for Ego to revisit this DLC tho...
#Piratelifematters

[ArcticISAF]

Originally posted by DaBa:

Originally posted by ArcticISAF:

Get your own bar/pool/bed in a ship

And have the music blast your eardrums at full volume whenever you save the game!

Oh god yes, so great XD I think it also happens when you alt-tab back into the game.