Ranger allegiance?

[Chewjinoble]

Ok, so, ranger allegiance. So many questions.

What is it?
Why should I give a damn about it?
How do I raise it?
How do I lower it?
Is it for individuals or the whole ranger base?
How do I know when I've raised or lowered it?
What effect does it have beyond the discount at base?
Why does it never seem to change from Uncertain?
Why do the developers feel the need to create a system so totally opaque?

[Radiac]

The Verchitin Armor is better armor value than the Nukular Armor, and you can get it a little sooner, but it has a Strength requirement of 9. Nukular has NO Strength Requirement, afaik.

[ne]

I did some testing on Ranger Allegiance because I was fed up with the trial and error:

• Rebellious: -50 and below, 5% discount
  
• Disgruntled: -21 to -49, 7% discount
  
• Uncertain: -20 to 49, 10% discount
  
• Loyal: 50 to 99. 12% discount
  
• Steadfast: 100 and above, 15% discount

Also started a list with quests and actions you can take to increase/decrease your Ranger Allegiance:

+1 allowing rangers&robots players to play at ranger HQ
+6 arresting vic
+5 inviting quarex to ranger hq at the end of his quest
+5 allowing frank papas to join the rangers (gives -5 marshals reputation)
+5 arresting valor
+1 recruiting Junko Murayama for the Ranger HQ museum

-40 completing hostile takeover for charley knowles
-1 inviting partying teenagers to HQ

There are many more, I had 85 without any of these, having done all quests except the three mentioned, Vic+Valor mainquests, and the Bizarre Takeover quest.

[cl656]

Originally posted by MrGamerGuy:

Originally posted by Justin_760:

The fact that you let the worthless refugees (who contribute nothing material and do nothing but whine and always want more charity) stay in a small, cramped military installation meant for Ranger operations in the first place was a big favor, and the fact that they have this pissy attitude of entitlement like the Rangers are some socialist welfare state really puts me off. Especially considering the benevolent act of giving them housing and their stance goes from a "thank you so much" to "how dare you we were here first" attitude.

Typical freeloaders. Give an inch, take a mile. To them its THEIR base, and they get livid if you decide to stop the community outreach housing the homeless charity (in a post apocalyptic world where resources are scarce.)

Damn dude, projecting for something? You sound like a bitter old man yelling at the clouds.

But he's a 100% right. You allow them to stay under the pretense that they make themselves useful. They could sweep the floors, clean the bathrooms, help the kitchen out, help the garage, do the laundry, help the museum, etc. But no, all they do is lounge around doing nothing.

And it's not a case of the game simply doesn't have them doing nothing, but in actuality, they are making themselves useful. No, you hear the complaints from other rangers, you hear it from the officers, that these people are doing nothing but taking up space.

[rhony2]

Originally posted by ne:

I did some testing on Ranger Allegiance because I was fed up with the trial and error:

• Rebellious: -50 and below, 5% discount
  
• Disgruntled: -21 to -49, 7% discount
  
• Uncertain: -20 to 49, 10% discount
  
• Loyal: 50 to 99. 12% discount
  
• Steadfast: 100 and above, 15% discount

Also started a list with quests and actions you can take to increase/decrease your Ranger Allegiance:

+1 allowing rangers&robots players to play at ranger HQ
+6 arresting vic
+5 inviting quarex to ranger hq at the end of his quest
+5 allowing frank papas to join the rangers (gives -5 marshals reputation)
+5 arresting valor
+1 recruiting Junko Murayama for the Ranger HQ museum

-40 completing hostile takeover for charley knowles
-1 inviting partying teenagers to HQ

There are many more, I had 85 without any of these, having done all quests except the three mentioned, Vic+Valor mainquests, and the Bizarre Takeover quest.

OK, thanks for the info. The only issue I have is that Quarex is only going to join you if Charley Knowles takes over the Bizarre. Since that action gives you -40, the +5 for getting Quarex to join you seems rather futile.
Also where did you get the numeric values for Ranger Allegiance?

[ne]

Originally posted by rhony2:

[...]Also where did you get the numeric values for Ranger Allegiance?

Those I extracted from the save files using the editor. It unpacks the XML save file and you can see the global variable governing Ranger Allegiance is called "G_RangerAllegiance". I saved before and after completing the quests or taking certain actions and simply compared the values.

I then did some testing by inputting various values, loading the save, and checking with Delgado to get the boundaries for the numeric values.

Originally posted by rhony2:

[...] The only issue I have is that Quarex is only going to join you if Charley Knowles takes over the Bizarre. [...]

Actually you can simply ignore the quest and do either one of the two main quests, at which point "A Very Hostile Takeover" will "complete" on its own (both factions wiping each other out, no loot unfortunately other than the two safes), which will cost no Ranger Allegiance, but enables Quarex's quest regardless.

[rhony2]

Originally posted by ne:

Actually you can simply ignore the quest and do either one of the two main quests, at which point "A Very Hostile Takeover" will "complete" on its own (both factions wiping each other out, no loot unfortunately other than the two safes), which will cost no Ranger Allegiance, but enables Quarex's quest regardless.

Did not know that, but generally I like to keep the Bizarre happy as I get my best discount there. Speaking of discounts I've never gotten more than 12% at Ranger HQ.
On my first run-through, one of the online guides I was looking at said that no matter what you did, there would be a revolt once you got back from Yuma so I did everything I could to make the troops at Ranger HQ happy - not only recruiting Masato, Junko, Ananda, Randy Gett (with his sister first time but I also tried without and that didn't seem to matter), but also getting Irv and VICI in the medbay (didn't seem to matter one way or the other) and I moved the Refugees to the brig. I did not recruit Frank Pappas as that would make Kwon leave. I was wondering whether it was possible to get the Hie sisters to work in the Mess Hall to help Masato but I never got an option for that.
Of course, once I found out that the true November Reigns ending results in NO revolt, it seems that the only thing Ranger Allegiance is good for is the discount. And since you get a 10% discount by default, all that extra effort for just 2% more seemed like a lot of effort for little gain.
As a matter of curiosity, do you know if Ranger Allegiance is affected by HQ casualties? There are two instances where the recruits can get killed - the situation with the Redd couple, and the Scar Collector attack after you meet with Connie Zeng.

[ne]

Originally posted by rhony2:

As a matter of curiosity, do you know if Ranger Allegiance is affected by HQ casualties? There are two instances where the recruits can get killed - the situation with the Redd couple, and the Scar Collector attack after you meet with Connie Zeng.

No, it makes absolutely no difference. I tested it on SJ, started the confrontation so the Scar Collectors would not get the first turn, and suffered no casualties wiping them out. Then I let it play out with the Scar Collector dialogue at the beginning, and then just ran into the base leaving the recruits to deal with it. No change in Ranger Allegiance.

I even let it run until they were in the base (and you can really see how awful the AI is because they spent just SO MUCH TIME just running around doing nothing at that point) and let them kill Ananda Rabindranath who is standing there if you recruit him, nothing. My Ranger Allegiance was still "steadfast" even though the commander and the squad just spent 30 combat turns huddled in the command room doing exactly nothing while dozens of ranger recruits died.

If the dev team had just put in a bit of work into the substance and not spent so much on fluff, this could have been a great game. But I guess if you have to appease the game "journalists" with their own little difficulty level, and make everything palatable to every single demographic that might ever play the game you lose sight of the important things.