The Elite Dangerous ingame reputation system thread

[kurush]

I think it's not possible to turn in Fed bounties at non Fed stations. Be careful that you don't make things worse.

Try to enter a station with silent running or visit an outpost. You can also try to do donation missions at a non fed station, minor factions do offer missions even if they are not in control of the station.

It is certainly possible - I am turning fed bounties in an indi station where the system security is provided by Fed (I'm "wanted" for Fed and I can see that I'm wanted in SC but not by that station). Also, bounty hunting in Fed space might be not a good idea because you will have all the authority ships on you. A nearby independent or even anarchy system might be a better choice, just get the KWS.

 

[Ben Ryder]

Getting caught with illegal Cargo just once or twice is considered a Capital Crime, worthy of instant destruction and eternal hate. For some unknown reason.

You'd still lose less Reputation by firing Torpedos right into the Lincoln Station port in SOL... than getting caught smuggling.

A test I look forward to carrying out

 

[B33 ENN]

Firstly, thank you to everyone that replied, taking the time to give such detailed advice from your experience.

When you bounty hunt your standing with the faction will raise. Make sure your in a Federation controlled system, and not just a system that has a few Federation outposts. That is how I got friendly with Federation.

Being in a Fed system is proving impossible because their security ships just open fire even when I'm trying to help them hunt a bad guy.

I think it's not possible to turn in Fed bounties at non Fed stations.

You can turn in a Fed bounty in any station providing there is a faction aligned to the Feds in the system. It doesn't have to own that station or even any station.

I've turned in fed bounties in independent stations... at least they're listed as independent as is the system...

Yes, that's what I was doing. Hanging around a station not controlled by them, but with one of their factions so I could turn in bounties.

Try to enter a station with silent running or visit an outpost. You can also try to do donation missions at a non fed station, minor factions do offer missions even if they are not in control of the station.

...What I did was find an outpost with a good set of missions and good facilities (in the Mufrid system iirc). It was pretty easy to then get that local faction to like me after a few reputation missions etc.

After that, I needed to move to another nearby system and run rep missions there. Took getting two or three local Fed factions to like me to salvage back an unfriendly status.

I've been unable to find any Fed missions available to me from even their allied factions, so I presumed being Hostile meant I was excluded from missions until that was resolved. From what you say, it seems you can find them in places?

I would caution trying to do it with bounty hunting - it's all too easy to be hunting wanted Fed ships and that will be detrimental to your rep.

I began looking for that just recently to avoid shooting at their ships after Googling someone's experience about it elsewhere.

 

[Pizz001]

Have a read of this post from support post about fixing bad rep it has a load of things you can do and they all work

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=130553

 

[B33 ENN]

A couple of rules I found out about the hard way:
Don't abandon any missions for them otherwise it will wipe all your good work,
Don't get caught smuggling as the resulting fine, even if it's tiny can cause your reputation to get even worse,
Bounty hunting, trading and cashing in exploration data will all help your reputation, but in tiny, tiny increments,
Do not go bounty hunting in a federation controlled sytem, the security ships have a high probability of just opening fire on you for no reason.
Do not, under any circumstances, try to help out a federation aligned faction in a conflict zone. If the feds are hostile towards you, even when you select their faction, all of the ships on both sides show as red and they will all open fire on you. Quickest death I have had in game.
Security ships are allowed to open fire on you even if you're not 'wanted'. Apparently if you're out of favour with them the federation security ships are allowed to openly ignore their own laws - sounds like you may have experienced this already.
They are clearly extremely emotionally sensitive and can change their minds about you in an instant so once you've improved your reputation ensure you play nicely with them after that, always send a birthday card, send flowers etc etc.

..Oh and completing Federation navy missions does, or at least did help improve my reputation hugely in one go.

Be careful with this, the last two Navy missions I've taken (both were to kill pirates) actually decreased my overall Fed rep because although one Fed Faction went up, two others went down. This was on turning in the mission, not for killing the pirates. Also only one of them actually advanced my rank.

Also be careful who you do missions for because when you do a mission for an independent faction, then sometimes your reputation for other factions will go down, and that includes federation factions.

Note that some Missions are actually illegal but do not state that ("Activity considered Illegal"). Stay away from those if Reputation is of any value to you.

Also be aware that bounty hunting or even killing a Federation-aligned Pirate (or Psycho) attacking you will reduce your Reptuation ...So when coming under attack from any Federation-aligned Ship - you have to leave it alone. Do NOT engage.

Losing Reputation i.e. with Illegal Missions issued even by the very Faction controlling that System is very easy if you get caught.

The illegal missions are a risk worth taking so long as you don't get caught, and if you have cargo space keep a stock of food cartridges, medicines any anything else that crops up for Rep only missions.

I'm going to have to print all that out and keep it beside me!

I'm still emotionally scarred by my experiences, if you end up the same way maybe use the forum as a support group.

I appreciate that, I think I'm definitely going to need it by the looks of it!

All these annoying details have been bug-reported a long long time ago, already during Beta phase.
Since they were never really addressed, I have to assume "working as intended". Why it is intended that way... beats me. I have no idea.

Whole other set of topics on my annoyances with aspects of the game balancing, so I won't go there.

Yep, it's going to take a LOT of work. Took me weeks (albeit in the short stints I'm able to play) to get back to neutral from unfriendly.

Great...

Have a read of this post from support post about fixing bad rep it has a load of things you can do and they all work

https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showthread.php?t=130553

Thanks, taking a look...

 

[Oblivious]

I'm not personally in this situation - I'm still 'Neutral' with the Fed, but I can see how some of my actions in the game could easily enough land me in some trouble.
So I'm going to study all this information and advice, and I thank all of you for posting it. The rep system in ED has really had me confused, but it's all somewhat clearer now.

 

[msyblade]

I'm guessing that you may be facing an unforeseen problem. It is possible that when you bounty hunt in an independent system, even if you find a small Fed outpost, that bounty hunting only increases rep with the system controlling faction, rather than just the base you turn it in at. I have made over 35 million in bounties, and I'm not even sure on this one.

Evidence A: This is all from Bounty hunting (Except the Alliance, that was from the Community goal to expand/explore.)

If that turns out to be the case, then I have a solution for you.

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for this being a completely stupid idea that does not work, even if performed flawlessly. Try at your own risk.

Run up a huuuge Fed bounty claim in the independent system (like 2-5 million) and "smuggle" them to a nearby Fed system
(I hope you know what I mean). The only real danger is being interdicted otw to the station, but I know how to fix that.

A: SOLO mode. At least when you "go for" the smuggle run. Last thing you want is a griefer ruining your big shot.
B: When interdicted. . .SUBMIT. I cannot stress this enough. You know when you get interdicted,
and 80% of the problem is that you have to wait for the Friendship drive to charge, so you can run?
well, submitting actually solves that problem. Instead of a 30 second FSD "cooldown", you are granted the 6 second cooldown for submitting.
Then, ZOOOOOM! gone. No NPC can kill you in 7 seconds, I promise.
C: Smuggle your bounties into the station (maybe check the bulletin board for even better ways to raise rep.) The problem with using BH to gain rep, is that your killing Fed pilots also, so it's more of a give/take, rather than a take/take. Successful missions grant take/take rep rewards. AND! Exploring, that is also a take/take rep method! Go exploring for a week, smuggle THAT info to the feds, and not only will you get a significant rep boost without risking death, but you'll make a cool 4-10 million on the side!


Using this method, you should be able to climb the ladder back to unfriendly. While your correct that you can no longer hunt in Fed space safely, you CAN still reap the rewards of turning those bounties in. Unless it works just fine turning them in to a minor Fed faction in a non fed system. Then this a lot of work for no gain. But sitting here typing it, I'm not gonna lie, it sounds FUN!

Hope this helps!

ps:Once you are at unfriendly, pick a fed system to call home, and BH there. Identify the controlling fed faction, and let those ships go ( I know, I SAY it easily. But the odds of me not shooting up a python worth 130k bounty, just because he belongs to _____, are pretty slim, because I'm pretty greedy. But if I was SMART, and backed into a corner, this is exactly what I would do. About 2 hours before returning to these forums to cuss out the guy who talked me into it.

 

[B33 ENN]

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for this being a completely stupid idea that does not work, even if performed flawlessly. Try at your own risk.

B: When interdicted. . .SUBMIT. I cannot stress this enough. You know when you get interdicted,
and 80% of the problem is that you have to wait for the Friendship drive to charge, so you can run?
well, submitting actually solves that problem. Instead of a 30 second FSD "cooldown", you are granted the 6 second cooldown for submitting.
Then, ZOOOOOM! gone. No NPC can kill you in 7 seconds, I promise.

Yep. I discovered that and now I never bother with evasion. I just drop out, evaluate the attacker, and if too tough, I boost away from it until I can go back into warp.

C: Smuggle your bounties into the station (maybe check the bulletin board for even better ways to raise rep.) The problem with using BH to gain rep, is that your killing Fed pilots also, so it's more of a give/take, rather than a take/take. Successful missions grant take/take rep rewards. AND! Exploring, that is also a take/take rep method! Go exploring for a week, smuggle THAT info to the feds, and not only will you get a significant rep boost without risking death, but you'll make a cool 4-10 million on the side!

If I may say, right now, I'm just not in the mood to explore, because what there is of it I've tried I find unfulfilling because of how little it rewards in credits compared to how long it takes. I think it's something you have to do for the fun of the discovering out of curiosity. Even trading is on an as and when basis because it is the most lucrative activity in the game, and something I spent the early weeks doing exclusively.

The combat is the exciting part of the game, for me, right now, and shmupping up my rank while doing something brilliantly entertaining like dogfighting, and raising some money as I go is my preferred way to work this off; hence bounty hunting.

Using this method, you should be able to climb the ladder back to unfriendly. While your correct that you can no longer hunt in Fed space safely, you CAN still reap the rewards of turning those bounties in. Unless it works just fine turning them in to a minor Fed faction in a non fed system. Then this ALOT of work for no gain. But sitting here typing it, I'm not gonna lie, it sounds FUN!

All good advice and gratefully received. Last couple of nights, I gave up on the Feds as I was pretty angry with them. I've been hanging out in an Alliance controlled system doing RES sorties, and I've managed to become Friendly with them without even meaning to. I really wouldn't care to grind to get back in with the Feds if it wasn't for the fact the control Sol, and that many of their systems are on my preferred trade route.

If I had my way, I'd wipe them out... ALL OF THEM!

 

[Oblivious]

Quick simple question here... According to my stats I'm neutral with the Federation, but I have a 'Cadet' rank with them.
How can I be neutral and yet have a rank, and what does rank mean?
Thanks.

 

[Thalios Abraxas]

There is a not too hard but a bit of time consuming solution to your problem with the feds:

Go exploring for a while and when you come back, hand in your data on federation aligned outposts. If you have lots of data, stop selling as soon as you reached allied status with that outpost and go to the next one. Worked like a charm for me. The data from my expedition to Sagittarus A* made me go from neutral to allied.

Quick simple question here... According to my stats I'm neutral with the Federation, but I have a 'Cadet' rank with them.
How can I be neutral and yet have a rank, and what does rank mean?
Thanks.

Rank and reputation are two different things.

- If your reputation goes down the drain like the OP here, all the stations alligned with that major faction will open fire on sight on you.

- Your rank within a faction will allow you to buy certain things: if you're 'Baron' with the empire, it will allow you to buy the Imperial Clipper for example

 

[msyblade]

Quick simple question here... According to my stats I'm neutral with the Federation, but I have a 'Cadet' rank with them.
How can I be neutral and yet have a rank, and what does rank mean?
Thanks.

The cadet rank is from doing a couple of specific "join the federal navy!" missions, rep is a collective of all interactions with the faction, rather than the Navy.

 

[ruger_shooter]

Palying in solo mode, does the difficulty increase as your reputation increases???

I currently play only in Solo mode at the moment harvesting wanted ships at a RES in Federation space with reasonable success depending on what ships are available. No cargo on board. Recently as my combat rep has increased I notice that the enemies are becoming more belligerent often attacking me before I have even scanned their clean/wanted status which can be awkward if they are in a wing of three. So is this an accurate observation? Will the baddies become more aggressive as my rep increases?

 

[AH_ImADot]

I think it's more a matter of you continually attacking ships from the same minor faction in the system. The more you do, the less they like you and will turn hostile towards you. At that point, they'll not tolerate you being around.

I haven't noticed the NPC ships being any more or less difficult based on combat rank.

 

[nvchad2]

I think it's more a matter of you continually attacking ships from the same minor faction in the system. The more you do, the less they like you and will turn hostile towards you. At that point, they'll not tolerate you being around.

I haven't noticed the NPC ships being any more or less difficult based on combat rank.

This has been my experience too, though I've not been playing a whole month yet. Doesn't seem like they get "harder" just more hostile.

Edit: Come to think about it...i haven't even done much combat, so my response is actually pretty useless. haha.

 

[willowfan]

The enemy ship AI in general is, allegedly, being turned up a notch or two as part of the powerplay update.

 

[Hellhawk666]

At the moment the NPCs don't scale, AFAIK.

 

[Ben Salient]

you need to check your Faction Reputations in the system you are Hunting in.
my Guess would be you have gone from Neutral to Unfriendly to actively HOSTILE with one or more of the factions in that system.
...
& yes that will result in Npc wings actively seeking you out ... often at the worst possible times ... like 1/2 way through a Conda Kill where all the local security force ships are occupied & unable to come to your rescue.
....
solution is to move your hunting to another suitable system.
you also might want to consider NOT hunting in systems you will use for trading (should trading appeal to you)
coz those hostile factions will be more likely to seek you out away from RES points as well.
p.s Working RES points where you are Allied to the controlling Faction will also help , The Local Security often seem to be much faster to bail you out of trouble... so long as they are not busy elsewhere

 

[Distance]

The only way they scale is if you stay in an instance. If you want to test this then go to a nav beacon and start killing ships. The first few police ships to show will be eagles or vipers. Once you kill them it will start throwing more police at you. The most I had it spawn was a couple of anacondas after I killed a police anaconda and about 15 other authority vessels.

 

[Mordu]

They don't scale in difficulty atm, but as some folks pointed out, if you hangout in a system bounty hunting long enough, they tend to throw aggressive swarms at you. I love it when it happens, I get to think like a rabbit being hunted by foxes. Suicidal foxes with lots of guns.
They usually like to attack you with swarms when you are pre-occupied with shooting a big target like a conda and such. I've had to break off many attacks to deal with the intruders.

 

[YerMUM]

Getting my reputation back

I was Friendly with the Federation, and have now suddenly switched to being unfriendly - and I can't work out what I did.
The only thing I can think of was that I was caught with some ever-so-slightly stolen items (TOTALLY legitimate booty picked up when a pirate interdicted me and then LOST!).
Would that be enough?