Ended last night on positive Federation move @80% - tonight upon logging in, I get negative move @79%

[n13L5]

Ended last night on positive Federation move @80% - tonight upon logging in, I get negative move @79%

Is this how fast the DECAY system starts to kill what you did dozens of repetitive missions for?

I haven't played since the decay system came in, but I never thought it would be this bad, that you get a loss from one day to the next?
Actively doing missions for forces allied with the Federation?? Just ~20 hours ago?

My Post Captain mission isn't showing up either, even though I've been doing missions at 100% long enough to where it couldn't possibly be sitting at 99.75% anymore.

First, its soooo grindy, and then it dares to be finnicky on top of that?



I know for sure, that I logged off last night with a blue up arrow next to Federation.
There was no botched mission, no forgotten mission, no fines, legacy or otherwise. Nothing that could have reasonably diminished my standing after logging off.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

Try 2 hours. My allied reputations regularly decay while I'm playing.

 

[ITZC0ATL]

Reputation decay has minimal effect on gameplay. It's naval rank that actually means something, which doesn't decay.

I've also heard CMDRs say that it's better NOT to level up. I'm not sure if it's still the case but the idea was that they'd get more rep grinding at lower ranks. At any rate, whatever you do now will definitely count towards the next rank(s), even if you haven't done the rank up mission yet.

So, in other words, nothing gameplay-impacting to worry about. Just play away as normal, the ranks and the missions will come.

 

[Aashenfox]

Do you know what the purpose is of this metric? It affects how quickly you gain rep with subfactions aligned with the specific superpower.

For example, let's say you got a station with two fed factions that you are neutral with, an empire faction and a bunch of independents. Means that fed rep metric affects the rep you gain with two sevenths of that systems factions. Let's say you are working on your fed rep, so you are only taking missions from the two fed factions, let's say that a +++ rep mission awards 50 points out of 1000 (5% seems about right for a triple rep mission at neutral). So, since having 100% fed rep does not increase your rep gains 100% (I am sure of this), then there's a reducing formula at work. Let's be generous and say it's 1 to 4. So, having 100% rep awards the 50 points plus another quarter of that, 12.5 points, for a total of 62.5 rep points. Full decay at 75% will award you 3 quarters of that 12.5 points (9.3), for a total of 59.3.

So, the difference between fully decayed rep and full rep makes about a 5% difference. And that's only for triple rep missions. Normal and low rep rewards will be even less affected.

My numbers aren't accurate, but they are close enough to validate my point. Which is...

Superpower rep is not something worth worrying about.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Try 2 hours. My allied reputations regularly decay while I'm playing.

That's just ridiculous.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Missions are about the slowest way to improve superpower rep.
Handing in half a million in relevant bounties at a superpower controlled station will take you from 75 to 95+%
Not sure how effective Exploration Data or Trade is compared to that.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Missions are about the slowest way to improve superpower rep.
Handing in half a million in relevant bounties at a superpower controlled station will take you from 75 to 95+%
Not sure how effective Exploration Data or Trade is compared to that.

Too bad it takes me now 50% longer to score bounties with the bulletsponged pimpships spawning.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Too bad it takes me now 50% longer to score bounties with the bulletsponged pimpships spawning.

There is that.
I tend to hold on to generic superpower bounties until I come across a system or faction I want to do some mission grinding with.
Pump up the superpower rep. by handing them in and then get to work.

 

[babelfisch]

IIRC decay is capped at 75%, so it shouldn't be much of an issue.

 

[Arthur Shappey]

IIRC decay is capped at 75%, so it shouldn't be much of an issue.

Agreed. It takes me about 1 hour of gameplay [with a KillWarrant scanner, and a HazRes, and a Low Security station for cross faction claims] to earn enough to get Allied, Empire & Fed from 75% to 100%.

It seems to decay at about 1% every 12 hours. But it is so easy to recover - that I have yet to be able to fathom what the fuss is about [and equally - why FDev even bothered to implement it]. It makes very little difference for mission rewards - doesn't affect rank - just tickles some player's OCD...

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Agreed. It takes me about 1 hour of gameplay [with a KillWarrant scanner, and a HazRes, and a Low Security station for cross faction claims] to earn enough to get Allied, Empire & Fed from 75% to 100%.

It seems to decay at about 1% every 12 hours. But it is so easy to recover - that I have yet to be able to fathom what the fuss is about [and equally - why FDev even bothered to implement it]. It makes very little difference for mission rewards - doesn't affect rank - just tickles some player's OCD...

.
Not if you want to advance to a new rank

 

[n13L5]

Reputation decay has minimal effect on gameplay. It's naval rank that actually means something, which doesn't decay.

Depends what matters to you about game play.

Being allied with a faction gives you a LOT more friendly treatment in comms from stations and patrol ships. Beyond that, you get interdicted less.
Personally, I much preferred the extra friendly treatment I had before the decay.

I'm not disputing that you might get more rep points faster if your super-power rank is lower. But I'd simply like a better mechanic, where they don't forget about the guy who was just their hero, 24 hours later. Its too fast and also doesn't conform to what FD said it was going to be.

 

[n13L5]

Agreed. It takes me about 1 hour of gameplay [with a KillWarrant scanner, and a HazRes, and a Low Security station for cross faction claims] to earn enough to get Allied, Empire & Fed from 75% to 100%.

It seems to decay at about 1% every 12 hours. But it is so easy to recover - that I have yet to be able to fathom what the fuss is about [and equally - why FDev even bothered to implement it]. It makes very little difference for mission rewards - doesn't affect rank - just tickles some player's OCD...

I guess you got a special way to farm that... my mission running doesn't do jack by comparison...

And its not OCD - its the fact that the damned NPC's get to be one hell of a lot more polite at allied. I LIKE POLITE NPCs A LOT BETTER.
Less interdictions and less scans is also pretty nice.

 

[ITZC0ATL]

Depends what matters to you about game play.

Being allied with a faction gives you a LOT more friendly treatment in comms from stations and patrol ships. Beyond that, you get interdicted less.
Personally, I much preferred the extra friendly treatment I had before the decay.

I'm not disputing that you might get more rep points faster if your super-power rank is lower. But I'd simply like a better mechanic, where they don't forget about the guy who was just their hero, 24 hours later. Its too fast and also doesn't conform to what FD said it was going to be.

Fair points CMDR.

While losing rep doesn't bother me personally, I get that the way FDev have handled the whole decay factor is just unnecessary.

 

[Genar-Hofoen]

I guess you got a special way to farm that... my mission running doesn't do jack by comparison...

And its not OCD - its the fact that the damned NPC's get to be one hell of a lot more polite at allied. I LIKE POLITE NPCs A LOT BETTER.
Less interdictions and less scans is also pretty nice.

As someone else explained, it's the NPC's under the controlling local faction which you're Allied with which are more polite and bother you less (it's great when they don't bother to scan your ship when entering/leaving a station).

But I agree - superpower reputation decays way too quickly for my liking, and I still, after 4 years, don't understand why it decays this rapidly.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

Do you know what the purpose is of this metric? It affects how quickly you gain rep with subfactions aligned with the specific superpower.

For example, let's say you got a station with two fed factions that you are neutral with, an empire faction and a bunch of independents. Means that fed rep metric affects the rep you gain with two sevenths of that systems factions. Let's say you are working on your fed rep, so you are only taking missions from the two fed factions, let's say that a +++ rep mission awards 50 points out of 1000 (5% seems about right for a triple rep mission at neutral). So, since having 100% fed rep does not increase your rep gains 100% (I am sure of this), then there's a reducing formula at work. Let's be generous and say it's 1 to 4. So, having 100% rep awards the 50 points plus another quarter of that, 12.5 points, for a total of 62.5 rep points. Full decay at 75% will award you 3 quarters of that 12.5 points (9.3), for a total of 59.3.

So, the difference between fully decayed rep and full rep makes about a 5% difference. And that's only for triple rep missions. Normal and low rep rewards will be even less affected.

My numbers aren't accurate, but they are close enough to validate my point. Which is...

Superpower rep is not something worth worrying about.

Superpower rep does matter if you're grinding up local faction rep and some/all of the local factions are aligned with the super power. I don't think any bonus kicks in unless you're allied with the superpower, but if you are allied, that local rep goes up 2 to 3 times as fast! Local faction reps matter because they determine $$$ for missions and access to certain passenger missions.

Superpower rep does not matter if you're just grinding up the naval rank for said power.

 

[Aashenfox]

Superpower rep does matter if you're grinding up local faction rep and some/all of the local factions are aligned with the super power.

Ya, I said that.

I don't think any bonus kicks in unless you're allied with the superpower, but if you are allied, that local rep goes up 2 to 3 times as fast!

That's definitely not my observation, gonna need a source or a video. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I need evidence to accept it as 'definite'. Wish an FD dude would chime in, as I am not sure that my description of the mechanic is any more likely to be the truth than yours, it's just based on gut feelings.

Superpower rep does not matter if you're just grinding up the naval rank for said power.

well, I could be pedantic here and say that Naval rank increase missions are sometimes behind a reputation barrier

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

That's definitely not my observation, gonna need a source or a video. I'm not saying you're wrong, just that I need evidence to accept it as 'definite'. Wish an FD dude would chime in, as I am not sure that my description of the mechanic is any more likely to be the truth than yours, it's just based on gut feelings.

Well, when I'm grinding up rep in a new system, and have charity missions for both an aligned and non-aligned local faction, I'll record the change for you. Until then, I can tell you that in my experience if I donate (let's just go with the max 1 million) to a non-aligned faction, one mission won't take them out of neutral. An aligned faction, with one donation, will jump to cordial. If I do 2 or 3 at a time, the unaligned will be slightly into cordial. The aligned will be half-way through cordial and friendly.

I'm only using charity missions for an example. It happens with all missions. You notice it more on the Medium rep (Courier, Assassination, Planetary scans) and Large rep (Planetary Salvage, Donation, and something else... I just forgot, dang).

I do local rep grinding a LOT. I created my own bubble in Imperial space where I would max every faction in a system and then move on to the next. Then I could run missions and everywhere I went to turn something in I would have more excellent missions to choose from. Plus it was just fun (called it my "Imperial Good Will" tour). Aligned factions are always MUCH quicker to max (assuming you're allied with the superpower) than non-aligned. Can I give you hard numbers? No, sorry. But it is enough of a difference that dealing with non-aligned factions drives me crazy; it takes forever to get them allied in comparison.

As a side note, the quickest way to maximize local rep is to turn in bounties/combat bonds for that faction. That's why I usually focus on systems with a Haz Res/Comp. Nav beacon to get the factions up to decent level quickly (e.g. cross the friendly line) and then start doing missions after that. Down side to bounty hunting is that it could slow the faction grind, or even reverse it (for anarchy groups that tend to be the frequent bounty targets). Hunting in CZs, on the other hand, has no down sides to the targeted faction.

On another side note, LTT 9455 is absolutely crazy. The six factions there seem to always be at war with each other all the time. This is the only system I have had to hop from CZ to CZ just to find the right warring factions for my massacre missions. Current record is 7 tries to find the right one.

well, I could be pedantic here and say that Naval rank increase missions are sometimes behind a reputation barrier

I'll take your word for it. I grinded up to Vice Admiral/Duke long before the mission revamp in 2.2 or 2.3 (don't remember which one that was in). Since then, I've managed to progress up all the way to King/Admiral over this past summer. Wasn't even really trying. I was just doing lots of missions for aligned factions to gain rep with them.

In short, I don't know what kind of barriers are in the way of Naval rank increase missions now.

 

[Aashenfox]

The usual subfactions rep barrier that applies to all missions (for example that you need to be friendly with them to accept the mission). If this has been changed, I wasn't aware, I also do a LOT of subfaction rep grinding.

 

[Daniel Cloudsifter]

The usual subfactions rep barrier that applies to all missions (for example that you need to be friendly with them to accept the mission). If this has been changed, I wasn't aware, I also do a LOT of subfaction rep grinding.

For non-Naval rank missions, yeah, that barrier is still there, but it isn't as onerous, or frequent, as it is for passenger missions. A lot of time it just affects the pay out for said mission. But yes, it does still exist. That is one of the reasons I like to start the whole local faction grind via bounty hunting: quick boost up into friendly, and then either do missions and/or more bounty hunting after that.

Hey, at least missions aren't locked behind your Pilot Federation ranks any more. I remember my Federal Naval rank grind constantly being stymied because I wasn't a Pioneer or Elite in Exploration yet. Ugh. That stunk. Now those ranks just affect your payout. A friend and I are offered the exact same assassination mission (same system, station, and exact same target): I'm offered around 1.5 million because it's Elite ranked for me, while he only gets offered 600k because his Master level.