Hi team, dynamic relations can be hilarious at times

[Snafu_X3]

I was trusted courier (rank 4) with the boron. I accepted one mission to escort a paranid from BORON space to the PARANID sector next to it and to defend it against pirates.
Well i made the mistake to succeed and kill some pirates in PAR space. Now i am a declared enemy of the boron (-3) and my trader ships in the starting sectors tell me that they are too afraid to move...

Boron are pacifists: they don't like it if you kill ppl, whoever they are & whether they're designated enemies or not Take a full look at the Encyclopaedia entry to see various impacts on race/faction/corp rep

If you had the opportunity you might have simply /disabled/ the Pirates enough to stop them from keeping up with your mission target, but with huge slow freighters etc that's likely to be difficult

There's a spoiler link in my sig for how to easily accomplish generic escort missions in TC; this method appears to still work in FL

[Hwitvlf]

Personally, I like the new dynamics. They're different so it takes a while to adjust mindset after years of playing TC/AP, but I welcome a variation in gameplay. It's a new puzzle to solve. You just have to choose sides and really pay attention to missions before you accept them. Thankfully, FL gives you all the info you need in the mission briefing to choose wisely.

So far, I've just limited my trader's range; the factory layout is such that they can still turn a decent profit without jumping across the universe. I pick a goal, like buying a certain ship, and seek out missions that will get me chummy with necessary faction.

The setup in TC/AP always struck me as ludicrous as you could spend weeks terrorizing a faction and then blow one pirate M6 in their home sector and all was forgotten. In FL there are significant consequences for your actions. That's a huge improvement in my opinion.

[Klord]

The setup in TC/AP always struck me as ludicrous as you could spend weeks terrorizing a faction and then blow one pirate M6 in their home sector and all was forgotten. In FL there are significant consequences for your actions. That's a huge improvement in my opinion.

I beg to differ in this regard. Last night I jumped from Paranid Enemy of Priest Xaar (-5) to Friend of Priest King (+5) from couple of transport missions. Thats a lot of rep change for random missions though it had some consequences.



Anyways, I like the fact that we can come back from damnation to friendship at ease. In AP, had to grind our asses out and options were limited. Added options are really really nice !
My thought is rep changes are a bit too much drastic and negative consequences for doing missions are a bit too much higher than we would like them to be.

[chip56]

Yeah, the concept is fine and the goal is clear. But i think that dropping 7 Ranks from a single mission is just too much if its a mission thats not targeted against that faction.

Maybe a check like
"was the mission target your faction or an ally? (example BOR and ARG)" (In real life you wouldnt act that harshly upon a food supplier as you would act upon a mercenary killing your people)
->if no: "Is your rep with the faction you are going to lose in low - medium positive range?" (ARG/BOR in this example) (In real life you might put in a trade embargo or make deals for them harder but you would not straight out begin bombing the factories of a food supplier just because they dared to sell some food to a different country you dont like. Or other real life situation: Switzerland did make deals with germany in WW2. Did the USA declare war because of that?)
->limit drop to max 1 rank

That way you would still have strong drops if you are already hostile or if you were very high or if you act directly against that faction. However if you just do a taxi mission somewhere or kill some xenon you wont suddenly be declared an enemy of the nation because of 1 mission. It would require a couple of missions. Each single one would have some impact but its not "oh damn, i am only rank 4 with a faction you dont like. Sorry i cant transport you to that station in the next sector because the other faction would then shot me on sight"

[teknosvk]

i station defend mission in argon space agains pirates made me from + 5 to -5 enemy of the paranid .. i mean really ?

[gunman127]

Well, thats the Spacelab and everything else I had completely destroyed by Boron

Who in the hell tested this and said the race relation mechanic made any goddamn sense

[Godalmighty83]

Have to say that the race relations has been the straw that broke this camels back, finally escape the starting slog of a mini-universe get a couple of local traders going, and my rep gets slaughtered and hostilities started due to cross race trading?

That or killing a pirate in one sector annoyed a major race in another?


I game to enjoy myself not to micromanage that mess, and give up on any ideas of having trade ships going just in case they accidentally sell some crystals to the wrong power plant. This is not something the series needed, it is not something that improves anything, it is only a headache. Sorry but you have made the game worse with an unwanted feature.

[Raptor34]

thats because your gaining rep with pirates. Argon and Boron are enemies to pirates

Wait. Doesn't that mean the old tactic of ambushing race patrols for capping in pirate sectors is now no longer viable?

[tim-ski]

Three issues here:

1. Pace of change: Reputations change too rapidly. Small actions have disproportionate impact. Likewise Agents can too easily rectify negatives.

2. Lack of feedback: Reputations jump around without enough explanation. Add a few automated traders, and who knows what just happened.

3. Expectations vary: War used to be largely optional, allowing neutral trading-empire gameplay. Veterans likely don't expect FL's model of hostilities.

The resulting sense of chaos is initially overwhelming. A confusion exacerbated by the fact that in the opening part of the game the player does much without apparent consequence. Ergo insufficient thought has been given to how the on-rails-exploration gameplay of the initial plot introduces the conflict mechanics of the sandbox. I simply don't know if one or both of these gameplay styles is ultimately viable, merely that the combination isn't smooth when first experienced.

[ZX9000]

After having finally gotten into the universe proper, I have to jump on the bandwagon regarding the implementation of dynamic reputations. The thought is good, but it's too much. Fly some dudes two sectors over, and I gained five ranks with the split, from 1 to 6. That in itself is crazy, it was an average transport mission with 140k reward, I didn't save a planet or anything.

And then I also went from 6 to -3 with the boron, along with other severe drops deep into shoot on sight with the argon, pirates, yaki, OTAS, Terracorp and Dukes. From one nonviolent mission. This level of volatility doesn't make sense, sadly. If you want real world similarities, no country or faction, besides the rabidly insane (meaning ISIS and similar) would maintain such a burning hatred for someone just for dealing with their rivals. Displeasure, yes, but not kill on sight. Maybe the split and the various pirate factions, but even that is a stretch. How do they even hear about it, instantly?

I think at the very least reputation drop from opposing factions should "cap" at the level where you can only visit border sectors (-1 I think?). So if you work with their rivals, but do nothing else against them, it won't drop lower. If you perform hostile actions against them it could of course drop lower fast, so you'd be living on the edge with them. Also, like others have mentioned, killing xenon shouldn't have any negative effect, same with pirates except for with the pirates themselves.

[Aranov]

Yeah I'm starting to hate this.

Made the mistake of too much piracy (against Paranid and Split, and some Argon), and add in some missions for pirates, and now my rep with pirate enemies seems stuck.
Been trying to help the Terrans as always (Terra Forever!), and I can't get my rep high enough to pick up an M7 or higher. Something I need, as it seems the AI, including Xenon, can use Jumpdrives now.
Freaking Qs man. Can't let my traders run on their own.

Anyway, I'm stuck with Terrans not giving me enough missions to eclipse the Pirate rep. Sometimes I jump to a sector and even see no missions.
Have an agent trying to raise rep, but I need missions to get them too. And ofc I have to be careful taking missions outside of the Sol system.
The few missions I'm doing seem to lower pirate rep (Second Mate) but not raise my Terran (Planetary Senator).

May not sound like much, but the result is jumping aimlessly in Terran space, instead doing something I enjoy, like exploring or building.
To say nothing of the fact I can't build stations in any government sectors for fear of them getting blown up after a few "bad" missions.

[Ramdat]

thats because your gaining rep with pirates. Argon and Boron are enemies to pirates

Will you add more feedback/information to the diplomacy in the next update? For example:

Every task should state how long it will take to complete, or at least an estimation.
Gather influence should state the amount of influence that will be gained.
Acquire special ship should indicate which ships will become available before starting the action, give an alert when they are available, and count down instead of up.
Increase race notoriety should give a preview to show the effect the action will have on all races.
Bonus race notoriety should state the bonus % and duration upfront.
Negotiate discount should say the discount % upfront, the discount duration based on your current influence, and count down instead of up. Also the ~20 hour task time seems a bit long, but I've never completed it so I don't know how powerful it is. Is the discount amount effected by reputation?

More info to the HQ would be nice too. Information like the time to reverse engineer, the resources gained from recycling, and the resources required to repair should be displayed before doing it.

[Virtualaughing]

In the freelancer game universe it was a pain. If your reputation raised by an action with a fraction then the corresponding enemies reputation dropped. The only reason why i dare to use that game as an example because it is not a competition anymore. In a private modded server called Voidserver i had a Mission guild as a workaround not to be bothered with NPC fire in PVP fights. The mechanics was to group with me but i do the hard work and you gain reputation with the chosed fraction. If you don't kill your enemies enemy is your friend (or how is that quote) then with my tactics you gain reputation enough without damaging other reputations too much.

I suppose that this is when the new AGENTS coming into the picture.

[X2-Illuminatus]

More info to the HQ would be nice too. Information like the time to reverse engineer, the resources gained from recycling, and the resources required to repair should be displayed before doing it.

This is already available. In your headquarters under "Adjust station parameters" -> "Docked Ships Control" select a ship and press the "i" key.

[Godalmighty83]

Before I go back to AP for good is there any quick script/plugin or command that can be used to disable dynamic relations and revert to the X-series traditional way?

[Ramdat]

More info to the HQ would be nice too. Information like the time to reverse engineer, the resources gained from recycling, and the resources required to repair should be displayed before doing it.

This is already available. In your headquarters under "Adjust station parameters" -> "Docked Ships Control" select a ship and press the "i" key.

Ah, thanks, I missed that.

Do you have any plans for the diplomacy suggestions? It's an interesting system but could use some tuning in transparency and rate of change. Your team has certainly done an excellent job on this DLC though; it's breathed new life into X3 for me.

[Klord]

I would like to humbly request from the dev team to do something about the dynamic relations in a future update. Its obvious that many loyal pilots are in favor of an adjustment.
Please consider.

[X2-Illuminatus]

Before I go back to AP for good is there any quick script/plugin or command that can be used to disable dynamic relations and revert to the X-series traditional way?

The Globals file gives you control over the dynamic relations. Feel free to ask for pointers in the Scripts and Modding forum.

Do you have any plans for the diplomacy suggestions?

No plans I'm aware of, which does not mean that we won't have a look and discuss what's possible.

I would like to humbly request from the dev team to do something about the dynamic relations in a future update. Its obvious that many loyal pilots are in favor of an adjustment.

We are aware of the feedback and we will discuss possible changes. I cannot give you an ETA or tell you how these changes will look like exactly though.

[Old Drullo321]

After reading this, I don't even want to start with X3FL. While someone can argue that beeing friend with multiple/all races/companies is wrong, I don't see any problem with it. In every previous X game I was peaceful with everyone except Xenon and hostile pirates. I loved it doing peaceful missions like taxi and building stations. When even those peaceful missions give such big reputation hits beyond my understanding,that isn't fun. E.g. enemies of the Argon couldn't care less if i transport some unknown person from A to B in their territories. Additionally destroying common enemies such as Xenon shouldn't give a reputation hit for any race

[Klord]

We are aware of the feedback and we will discuss possible changes. I cannot give you an ETA or tell you how these changes will look like exactly though.

Thank you very much for the acknowledgment. Looking forward to the next update !

Until then, let me share some insight on how to earn some money doing random missions, without making everybody enemies.

DO MISSIONS FOR TELADI !

I know it feels counterintuitive to jump and fly around only in Teladi space. But since Teladi are neutral with all major commonwealth factions, their missions wont negatively impact any other faction/corporation except for Yaki. You can do combat missions in which where the enemies are Pirates, Yaki or Xenon. Can also do all non combat missions which involve in transporting passengers or hauling wares. Just make sure that mission is offered by Teladi personals !

This aint very fun, but helps in managing reputation.