Black Market Access

[Shinobi273]

Is campaign black market access restricted in the campaign? I have been pre-Weldry for 200+ weeks and never been offered black market access. I also have 90+ pirate reputation and travel through pirate space regularly.

[terrycpa1972]

No it's not restricted in the campaign mode. But it is random when you get the offer and if you decline it I believe you have to wait a 1 game year before you can get another offer.

[DEADPOO]

Decline?
Lol, it's more like you can't afford the hefty fee when starting out.

[Shinobi273]

I was over 300 weeks in and had not been offered black market access. I just finished First Strike at Weldry and received the Argo so I'll see if that makes a difference. I could have totally afforded the access fee.

[DEADPOO]

If your Pirates relationship is in the high negatives, this might be the reason.

Edit: Wait over 300 weeks in...and you just got the Argo? Thats not very far in the game storywise, but game-wise...that's hell of a long time!

[Shinobi273]

I was considering forming an alliance with pirates but I didn't want to become everyone's enemy until after the campaign. I'm still over 90 reputation.

[ImHelping]

Originally posted by DEADPOO:

If your Pirates relationship is in the high negatives, this might be the reason.

Edit: Wait over 300 weeks in...and you just got the Argo? Thats not very far in the game storywise, but game-wise...that's hell of a long time!

It's understandable if you don't know the game's artifical handicaps in the leopard phase, and wanted to "grind up some cash/rep/etc" first.

My first time playing I decided I'd "Grind up some cash" before taking the first plot mission, not realizing you are super extra screwed on contracts at that "trapped in detroit" point (like, so much that even modding contract count doesn't work until are given permission to leave detroit) so even perfect play takes forever.

Back then there were even bugs that would crash the game if the grand total mission salvage was less than your contract, so I had some crashes because "Well the ENTIRE enemy force is a locust and spider I obliterated" and reloading to shuffle the mission comp to more tank filler/adjusting my contract.

It gets better after the first plot mission that lets you out of there. But if you delay the plot AT ALL, 20-40 days per single contract adds up with not much to show for it.

With the OP also trying to grind rep "Before the black market event", early game rep gains are incredibly tiny even if you skip pay and salvage for max rep gains. Then you throw on travel times. THEN you throw on time wasted by not taking any jobs on a planet because they will lower your rep with your intended rep grind faction (and vs pirate is the most common, while missions FOR pirates are less common even when liked/friendly).

So if anything. It's a miracle they have 90+ pirate rep in JUST 300 weeks via leopard phase gameplay.

While murphys law would demand they miss the event when they couldn't pay for it if they rushed the argo, long term it would be much faster to wait till you have the argo to grind pirate rep.

[terrycpa1972]

The offer is random. I went around 270 weeks in campaign before I saw the 1st offer. Anything that is random can sometimes be impossible at times. Alternately in career I got in the first or 2nd jump.

[Werecat101]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

Originally posted by jonyoshida:

I was considering forming an alliance with pirates but I didn't want to become everyone's enemy until after the campaign. I'm still over 90 reputation.

DO NOT ally with pirates. All your rep goes to 0 from everyone else AND the pirates DO NOT have a faction unique shop that you would normally gain access to when in an alliance.

If you were doing it for the challenge more of a challenge for you would try to be creating some form of ramshackle StarLeague by forging a triple alliance pact with any of these faction combos
Kurita, Magistracy and Marik
Magistracy, Marik and Davion
Marik, Kurita and Taurians
Davion, Magistracy and Steiner

by doing the odd goodwill battle you can keep all factions talking too you.

[Fatbill]

You need to travel among the systems to trigger the "buy access" event.

I also want to say I have never seen it happen inside of Arano space, either.

[Fatbill]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

Originally posted by jonyoshida:

I was considering forming an alliance with pirates but I didn't want to become everyone's enemy until after the campaign. I'm still over 90 reputation.

DO NOT ally with pirates. All your rep goes to 0 from everyone else AND the pirates DO NOT have a faction unique shop that you would normally gain access to when in an alliance.

This is why it pays to troll around uncontrolled space and take missions against the various non-aligned planetary governments.

You can take as many missions against planetary governments as you want and it will not negatively effect faction for anyone else at all.

[Asmosis]

Originally posted by DEADPOO:

Decline?
Lol, it's more like you can't afford the hefty fee when starting out.

It's only hefty if your proactively taking anti-pirate missions. If you keep neutral its only 500k, and you start with 900k (in career, i forget campaign but camp missions = $$$ anyway).

You can get black market offer on your very first inter-system jump. You can save scum that if you want access from the start of the game (because honestly its way to rare for what it is).

[Aldodrem]

Originally posted by steve:

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

DO NOT ally with pirates. All your rep goes to 0 from everyone else AND the pirates DO NOT have a faction unique shop that you would normally gain access to when in an alliance.

If you were doing it for the challenge more of a challenge for you would try to be creating some form of ramshackle StarLeague by forging a triple alliance pact with any of these faction combos
Kurita, Magistracy and Marik
Magistracy, Marik and Davion
Marik, Kurita and Taurians
Davion, Magistracy and Steiner

by doing the odd goodwill battle you can keep all factions talking too you.

Just started playing game again after years off and the dev must have changed the factions likes and dislikes because the above is no longer valid as some of them now hate each other and some of them now like others they didn't when I made that list.

This is the new ramshackle star league challenge list, with the rep changes you can now go hardcore with quad alliances available (& pirates are still hostile to everyone).

Draconis Combine, Capellan Confederation, Arano Restoration
Draconis Combine, Free Worlds League, Arano Restoration
*Draconis Combine, Free Worlds League, Taurian Concordat (Only possible after you complete the story since *spoiler* one of them is at war with Arano)
Federated Suns, Lyran Commonwealth, Magistracy of Canopus, Arano Restoration
Federated Suns, Free Worlds League, Magistracy of Canopus, Arano Restoration

If you could break the story & do mission FOR Aurigan Directorate you'd have a couple more triple alliances and another quad to choose from.

[Asmosis]

I don't really see the point in alliances, i get ~95% of my gear from the black market. The faction stores aren't particularly interesting that i've seen.

Having high faction rating with pirates also means i can "ping pong" rep points between pirates and the local faction resulting in no net loss, potentially freeing up more missions.

In my current game i have positive:
Pirates, Lyran, Federated suns and Magistracy, negative for everyone else.

If there's unique flashpoints that only turn up when you're allied i'll revisit the alliance thing after career is over.

[Aldodrem]

Yes, the 5 major Innershpere faction do have unique flashpoints that are offered only if their is an active alliance with them (Taurians, Magistracy, Pirates and Arano do not).

Hard to get them all on a single play as relations go to -100 with enemies of an ally. So after you break the alliance you have to build a 200 point rep up. And to do so the dumb contract system limits you to half skull contracts that pay +3rep until you grind out of them hating you so they give you better contracts.

[jimmy.cwl]

Originally posted by Aldodrem:

Hard to get them all on a single play as relations go to -100 with enemies of an ally.

It only goes to zero, not -100. However, the enemy in the alliance flashpoint you go up against is likely to be driven to -66 or worse by the time you finish the FP. At that point, you'll have to grind 3 skull missions until you can repair relations with them. A hint with that, look for three and a half skull systems on the starmap. The filter on the starmap is for average difficulty, so that's where you can find 3 skull missions.

It's not hard on a single play, just tedious. I'm trying it, already did two, got the third one up to 100, am deciding if I want to pump one more up before I ally to save time.