Newcomer / Intro Suddenly hostile what did I do, what should I do?

[Quddus]

I did a search first and posted on the end of an old discussion in the general forum but this is probably best put on as a new newbie Q.

I've always laughed at idiots who don't have rebuy costs accounted for, who do silly things, who don't learn the game etc etc moaning, but this time with all my care and diligence I am a bit shocked and peeved.

I've stopped playing Elite as for no apparent reason I'm suddenly hostile with the Fed and it's crippled gameplay for me. Feds start shooting at me for no reason when I've done little wrong! I have no bounties at all, I've never shot at a Fed, I've always helped them out in fights against wanted people, I've instantly paid any small fines I've picked up yet although I don't come up as wanted (empty cargo ) I'm still shot at and classed as hostile throughout Fed space!

I never shoot back as I have no issue with them but for some reason they don't like me!

Ok so I've smuggled a few times (but NEVER been noticed), and I had two instances of friendly fire with clean folk, which I paid off. One of them tried to kill me, the idiot, he came off worse - I paid up immediately (even though it wasn't my fault but hey...). And I've been caught 3 times or so with allegedly stolen cargo. I've always paid these fines off instantly. Oh yeah, I tried doing some missions where I failed, but not many, and tried my sincere best to complete them.

I just don't get why suddenly I'm hostile and I don't know what I can do about it.

Do I just have to join the Empire or Alliance?
Do I just have to become a pirate baddie?
Do I just clean restart despite the hours I put in?
Or do I, like most others, just quit the game, put up with the £40 loss, and spend half that amount on a game that's actually been developed more carefully?

 

[Easy_Target]

All sounds a little odd - did you stop playing for a while while having an unpaid fine or other?
Smuggling I think will effect your rating with the local faction which should bubble up to the main faction - but someone will give a definitive on this.

To fix rep just do as many local missions/BB jobs as you can - it takes some time but you will achieve at worst neutral status

 

[Quddus]

Thanks mate yeah it does sound odd and no I didn't stop playing with any fines outstanding.
Smuggling may have an effect but I've never been caught with it as always managed to zoom in quickly without a scan.

From reading around the forum I didn't think missions helped with the Fed so much although it may help with local factions. But then I also read that even if a local faction ends up wanting your kids the Fed will still hate you and that trumps what the locals think of you so they'll hate you too. !??

 

[Eagle Eye]

The caught with stolen cargo part. That one KILLS your reputation. If you want to be goody2 with any faction, Do NOT get caught doing anything illegal in their watch. You can pay the fine easily, but the reputation drop is MASSIVE and it is done that way by design. Like how you have been the best doctor in the city for years, but ONE incident with that goat....

 

[Quddus]

Ok thanks. Pity that the only way to learn this is to spend six weeks and learn it the horribly hard way of being left with a choice of restarting or throwing an extortionate £40 down the drain... !!!

In real life your reputation might drop yes, but not to the point being overtly hostile and wanting to kill you! When you pay your fine, do your time or whatever all is forgiven. Ok it might be harder to get credit etc (and likewise in this game factions won't trust you enough for missions which is fine) but for a whole organisation to suddenly decide you're an enemy and want to KILL you is just counterintuitive and plain stupid.

I hope there's a way out of this mess. I don't want to join the ranks of bitter ex-Elite-lovers on gaming forums!

 

[Eagle Eye]

You can rebuild, but since you're hostile it might mean doing missions for Federation factions from non Federation cotrolled stations for a long time (months) and NOT get in their bad side even once while doing so. i am Allied and can survive a hit or ywo and remain allied, but 1 infraction while being friendly is enough to get you down into neutral/unfriendly

 

[Quddus]

Thanks Eagle Eye.

Really seems quite stupid and this has basically taken me from someone who has ranted and raved about this game to anyone who'd listen to someone who will probably still play it but definitely won't be recommending it to anyone. £40 for a game that in many respects is amazing, but in many others is outright clumsy and ill-thougth-out and can ruin months of hard work (through no obvious fault of your own) is wrong. £5-10 for such an experimental developing game, maybe. But £40 is what you'd expect to pay for something extremely well developed and a gleaming finished article. This sadly is not. I'm far from happy and wish I hadn't bought the game to be honest.

But now I have, and here I am, for now. I'm not willing to restart and not willing to spend months sucking up to an irrational bunch of idiots (Feds) in a flawed game. So what do I do? Cut my losses and go and find some Empire or Alliance space and get in their good books?

On a more positive side, actually, is it the case that if you want to progress within one of the big three you pretty much have to end up being hostile to *someone*? If so, then I guess I've lost nothing other than being unwittingly forced into being ant-Fed. In which case I take back *some* of the negativity above. But if it is possible to be friendly with everyone and progress within one of the ranks then yeah, it's a bummer.

 

[xondk]

.

Did you have any outstanding fines that you hadn't paid? if you don't pay them off within 24 hours then you get a bounty on you, and if the fine is to a faction that is allied with a major faction then the bounty will be from the major faction, and thus all their stations will be rather unhappy with you. Seem to be a few that don't realize this and have had fines in systems they haven't been back to since their visit for the fine and as such forget to pay it off.

 

[Quddus]

Cheers mate but no not at all. I immediately know when I've done something 'wrong' and go and pay it ASAP

 

[Ian Skippy]

I responded in a similar thread, will try to find it in the weekend for you. In short:

1) don't clear save.
2) yes, you can get back with Feds. Will give more info later.
3) I wouldn't bother. They treat you like garbage? Join the Empire and show them who they're messing with. You are not their lapdog.
4) on the off-chance this is a bug: ticket it. FD fixes individual saves when bugs occur. It may take them some time though, they are swamped.

 

[Rutg3rO]

On a more positive side, actually, is it the case that if you want to progress within one of the big three you pretty much have to end up being hostile to *someone*? If so, then I guess I've lost nothing other than being unwittingly forced into being ant-Fed. In which case I take back *some* of the negativity above. But if it is possible to be friendly with everyone and progress within one of the ranks then yeah, it's a bummer.

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news
But I think you can progress in all. Most missions are internal faction against internal faction. Thus your actions won't influence the other big factions. So you could advance in multiple main factions.
Can it be btw that you are unfriendly for a local faction and not for the entire fed faction? Check your right interface (info) panel's first tab. Use A/D to navigate within the first tab In the first page you see your status with the main factions. In the second page, you see your status with the local factions. Maybe this can shed some light on things.

 

[asavaria]

with my experience so far... i think that to recover from a fine because of friendly fire = 20-25 BB mission minimum


I'm stuck as unfriendly since 3-4 week... got maybe 4-5 fine/wanted because of friendly fire and can't seem to be able to get back at neutral with bounty or BB Mission...

For me, it's just bad design

 

[andyraptor]

More like good design that has caught you out...

I'm currently allied with a faction with Fed alliegence and have friendly status with Fed in the system and surrounding systems... what do you think would be the effect of taking a mission to spread anti Fed propaganda or get caught smuggling banned goods into a star port in those systems on several occasions ?

If you can't work out basic sociAl interaction. ..don't blame the game

 

[asavaria]

The reputation in this game is really really buggy or just wrongly designed

 

[Space Time]

Go Green?

The Green Machines...

When I tried bounty hunting, I just thought that Wanted meant kill it. Then I found out that I was not liked because I was killing green... friendly to the Fed and me...

Space Time

 

[LeetNoob]

The best way to get rep back I find is just keep bounty hunting and turning the bounties in, it seems faster than doing missions to me but I've no data to back that up.

 

[andyraptor]

The reputation in this game is really really buggy or just wrongly designed

Once you have worked out how the design and model currently used is flawed ..... perhaps you could articulate that and post in the Suggestions section how and why it is - and then any solution you may have for the Development team to evaluate your proposal.

That would help you and us

 

[Quddus]

Once you have worked out how the design and model currently used is flawed ..... perhaps you could articulate that and post in the Suggestions section how and why it is - and then any solution you may have for the Development team to evaluate your proposal.

That would help you and us

That's a better response.

Responses such as your earlier "If you can't work out basic sociAl interaction. ..don't blame the game " are less than helpful. There's a lesson in 'basic social interaction' for you

Having said that such responses were exactly what I was likely to be dishing out not so long ago as I was getting fed up with dumb idiots throwing their toys out the pram for not leaving enough rebuy credits, etc etc etc. And I used to (and still will I hope) defend Elite to the death (as a fan from the age of 10), but I am now beginning to get irked by what *seem* like flaws. It's fine if someone can say "yeah that's a flaw, tell the FD team", and I will gladly do so and be very impressed by the experience if it gets acknowledged and fixed, but the fact that noone can to this point figure out whether it's a flaw or the game mechanics, or bad design, or poor "basic social interaction" skills, is very telling indeed!

UPDATE for me: I had a quick try 30mins ago and was surrounded by Feds (ZERO bounty, ZERO cargo, STILL not wanted in the slightest, all legit) and of course they all come up as red. Then they said "Crime detected". What? What crime??? Other than them deciding they don't like me?? How's that a "crime"?? THEN even more bizarrely they said "You're all clear to go commander".

WHAT???

Either I've committed a crime or I haven't. If I *have* then a) what is that crime??? b) why are they saying I'm all clear to go?
If I haven't then a) why are they saying I have? and b) why are other feds in other areas randomly shooting at me?

My basic social interaction skills suggest to me something somewhere is not right.!

 

[Quddus]

I responded in a similar thread, will try to find it in the weekend for you. In short:

1) don't clear save.
2) yes, you can get back with Feds. Will give more info later.
3) I wouldn't bother. They treat you like garbage? Join the Empire and show them who they're messing with. You are not their lapdog.
4) on the off-chance this is a bug: ticket it. FD fixes individual saves when bugs occur. It may take them some time though, they are swamped.

Thanks buddy look forward to it.

- - - - - Additional Content Posted / Auto Merge - - - - -

Sorry to be the bringer of bad news
But I think you can progress in all. Most missions are internal faction against internal faction. Thus your actions won't influence the other big factions. So you could advance in multiple main factions.
Can it be btw that you are unfriendly for a local faction and not for the entire fed faction? Check your right interface (info) panel's first tab. Use A/D to navigate within the first tab In the first page you see your status with the main factions. In the second page, you see your status with the local factions. Maybe this can shed some light on things.

Thanks.
Yes I'd done that and I'm hostile with federation in general, but also hostile with three local factions all of which seem to be allied to Federation.
I don't know which caused which.
Or as I say why I'm hostile at all!

 

[asavaria]

The main problem with Reputation is that we have no way to see where we are at and what does the things we do for them give us / remove reputation.

I think we should have a % number next to all minor/major factions telling us where we are with them (i.e 20% unfriendle, 80% neutral,....) not just a blue or red arrow

We when we are doing missions, i would love to see something like Reputation +0.5% or something like that
We we get a fine or a bounty, they should display something like -5% Reputation

I think, right now, the reputation is, like you say, is flawed.

And sorry if i can't articulate enough for you, english is my third language

Once you have worked out how the design and model currently used is flawed ..... perhaps you could articulate that and post in the Suggestions section how and why it is - and then any solution you may have for the Development team to evaluate your proposal.

That would help you and us