Need*
First off, let me preface this by saying I've been playing steadily since Alpha 4. I LOVE the game, and will continue to keep playing it for a looonnnggg time. I was so sad when space games fell from glory, and ecstatic when I heard Elite was making a return. I've played every phase of the beta/gamma, doing every new activity as it was introduced. So I'm very well acquainted with the game and all of it's best qualities, as well as it's quirks.
But I think right now the biggest glaring issue with the game's player progression, factions reputation gains in particular, is that the A.I. isn't actually smart enough to honor it.
When the game went live, I immediately headed to empire space and started doing missions there as I progressively worked my way towards Achenar. The majority of the work I've done has been bounty hunting and combat. Though I've done several "fetch quests" too.
It didn't take very long to get my first Imperial Navy recruitment mission. In fact I rose to the rank of Squire and got my Achenar permit pretty quickly. Mostly by being utterly meticulous in paying attention to the faction that wanted criminals belonged to while bounty hunting at nav beacons. Everything was going pretty well. I had reached friendly status with the primary Empire faction itself as well as several of the Empire's sub factions like the Empire League, Citizens of Tradition, Patron's Principles, etc etc. This was how I gained most of my reputation with the Empire. My bounty vouchers. I'd do a mission here and there, and always did the naval ascension missions, but my bounty vouchers are what got me most of my rep.
But today while I was hunting pirates in my Cobra Mk. III at the local nav beacons in the systems immediately surrounding Achenar, things started to get... Weird...
I was ONLY attacking wanted criminals with significant bounties that were NOT members of Empire-allied factions. But as soon as those wanted criminals died, I wouldn't get a fine or become wanted myself, but the security forces sure acted like I was. I was immediately attacked by the Imperial security forces. I jumped out and back into the nav point, and that seemed to clear things up. But the next time I killed a wanted criminal, the cops were back on my case. And I've suffered countless credits of repair costs just trying to get out of there alive.
I've haven't once attacked someone who was clean, or gotten a fine, but now over the course of today, I'm actually back down to Neutral with the Empire, and I haven't done ANYTHING that might actually upset them. I was even careful about which missions I took that read like they had seedy undertones or political implications that might hurt my rep with them in the long run. In the end, I ended up losing a LOT of personal progression in both rep and credits today because of buggy game code.
TL;DR; I've been a loyal patron of the Empire, and the game's buggy A.I. and rep system screwed me over hard.
First off, let me preface this by saying I've been playing steadily since Alpha 4. I LOVE the game, and will continue to keep playing it for a looonnnggg time. I was so sad when space games fell from glory, and ecstatic when I heard Elite was making a return. I've played every phase of the beta/gamma, doing every new activity as it was introduced. So I'm very well acquainted with the game and all of it's best qualities, as well as it's quirks.
But I think right now the biggest glaring issue with the game's player progression, factions reputation gains in particular, is that the A.I. isn't actually smart enough to honor it.
When the game went live, I immediately headed to empire space and started doing missions there as I progressively worked my way towards Achenar. The majority of the work I've done has been bounty hunting and combat. Though I've done several "fetch quests" too.
It didn't take very long to get my first Imperial Navy recruitment mission. In fact I rose to the rank of Squire and got my Achenar permit pretty quickly. Mostly by being utterly meticulous in paying attention to the faction that wanted criminals belonged to while bounty hunting at nav beacons. Everything was going pretty well. I had reached friendly status with the primary Empire faction itself as well as several of the Empire's sub factions like the Empire League, Citizens of Tradition, Patron's Principles, etc etc. This was how I gained most of my reputation with the Empire. My bounty vouchers. I'd do a mission here and there, and always did the naval ascension missions, but my bounty vouchers are what got me most of my rep.
But today while I was hunting pirates in my Cobra Mk. III at the local nav beacons in the systems immediately surrounding Achenar, things started to get... Weird...
I was ONLY attacking wanted criminals with significant bounties that were NOT members of Empire-allied factions. But as soon as those wanted criminals died, I wouldn't get a fine or become wanted myself, but the security forces sure acted like I was. I was immediately attacked by the Imperial security forces. I jumped out and back into the nav point, and that seemed to clear things up. But the next time I killed a wanted criminal, the cops were back on my case. And I've suffered countless credits of repair costs just trying to get out of there alive.
I've haven't once attacked someone who was clean, or gotten a fine, but now over the course of today, I'm actually back down to Neutral with the Empire, and I haven't done ANYTHING that might actually upset them. I was even careful about which missions I took that read like they had seedy undertones or political implications that might hurt my rep with them in the long run. In the end, I ended up losing a LOT of personal progression in both rep and credits today because of buggy game code.
TL;DR; I've been a loyal patron of the Empire, and the game's buggy A.I. and rep system screwed me over hard.