Tides of Avarice quest advice needed

[Kwoung]

So I got to the point of meeting the two brothers, tried "go my own way" and attacked one, but my ship wasn't good enough to take out his shields. So I reloaded and am now back at the point of picking up the blackbox, but am going to let it sit so the story doesn't progress for now and start the Tide timer. I want to grab a better ship, but before I start... am wondering about the different outcomes, it seemed like I had two quests active then I chose to attack, and the VIG went instantly red to -20. If I stay this path will I be able to fix the VIG, what if I get them to +20 something first, will that keep them cool or do they just drop to -20 no matter what? Just looking for some advice since this seems a critical turning point and I don't want to screw it up. I know I could play through all the options myself and see how they each turn out, but I have limited playtime and that would take months if not longer.

About my style: I am friendly (20+) with the main base game and Terran factions, and plan on getting all the factions except BUC, XEN & KHK to max. I generally do trading, am well along the way to my PHQ becoming a self sufficient wharf/shipyard, and plan on taking on the BUC, KHK & XEN to clean up the universe once I have built a fleet up.

My goal with Tides is to keep RIP & VIG happy (or get them back to happy fast), possibly grab both the brothers ships (is that even possible?) and also be able to build them myself later on. I also want to sell the stuff the brothers are dealing in, because that seems like a pretty decent money maker to fund my blueprints and station/ship building endeavors. I also do not want to kill the Teladi, if avoidable.

Any advice or just explanation of the various choices and various methods to achieve them would be appreciated, thanks!

[EGO_Aut]

You will have to destroy one station, and some hundret S fighter and some Barbarosas
If you play IS you will need a good tactic to avoid missile damage.

[Raptor34]

It drops the VIG rep to a target value, like -20-25 iirc and gives you a mission to kill a station and another one to go to some satellite to pay them off. Both are needed btw.
Do the kill mission first, at that point you are rep locked to the negative thing it dropped you to.
After that then you pay them off and it'll restore your rep or something, mine restored all the way back to the 20-30 I was originally in, though it's also possible it just gives you a big chunk of rep.
Not sure if you can switch the order, but I can vouch for kill first then pay off. Probably safer imo.

[jlehtone]

Do the kill mission first, at that point you are rep locked to the negative thing it dropped you to.
After that then you pay them off and it'll restore your rep or something, mine restored all the way back to the 20-30 I was originally in, though it's also possible it just gives you a big chunk of rep.
Not sure if you can switch the order, but I can vouch for kill first then pay off. Probably safer imo.

I had +20 to begin with. Choosing side I lost 30, so was at -10. Then I did spend time to capture one Astrid. While doing so, every couple minutes, I lost another 5. By the time I got to the Satellite, I was at -25. Paying off did return 5, so then at -20. Kill of station did return 40; final status was +20.

[Raevyan]

You will have to destroy one station, and some hundret S fighter and some Barbarosas
If you play IS you will need a good tactic to avoid missile damage.

When I did the mission the fighters didn’t bother to attack me at all. They didn’t even go red.

[EGO_Aut]

You will have to destroy one station, and some hundret S fighter and some Barbarosas
If you play IS you will need a good tactic to avoid missile damage.

When I did the mission the fighters didn’t bother to attack me at all. They didn’t even go red.

I did the mission pre 5.0, but when the "destroy station" mission came, i thought EASYYYYY, and then wtfffff

[Raevyan]

You will have to destroy one station, and some hundret S fighter and some Barbarosas
If you play IS you will need a good tactic to avoid missile damage.

When I did the mission the fighters didn’t bother to attack me at all. They didn’t even go red.

I did the mission pre 5.0, but when the "destroy station" mission came, i thought EASYYYYY, and then wtfffff

This mission was added with ToA dlc. You can’t do that pre 5.0

[EGO_Aut]

When I did the mission the fighters didn’t bother to attack me at all. They didn’t even go red.

I did the mission pre 5.0, but when the "destroy station" mission came, i thought EASYYYYY, and then wtfffff

This mission was added with ToA dlc. You can’t do that pre 5.0

Ups, sry then
But i did the mission before my actual game.
And i started my last game before 5.0 got released, and began a new one because of goodies you get with a new start.....

[Kwoung]

It drops the VIG rep to a target value, like -20-25 iirc and gives you a mission to kill a station and another one to go to some satellite to pay them off. Both are needed btw.
Do the kill mission first, at that point you are rep locked to the negative thing it dropped you to.
After that then you pay them off and it'll restore your rep or something, mine restored all the way back to the 20-30 I was originally in, though it's also possible it just gives you a big chunk of rep.
Not sure if you can switch the order, but I can vouch for kill first then pay off. Probably safer imo.

Thanks all!

I went with this advice and was able to capture the cool ship, destroy the station and then bribe them off.. ended up with +20 faction with VIG and all is good! I have to say though, I am really glad I had built a huge fleet first, there were a ton of fighters that came to defend that station... well actually they attacked before I even got there, so cleaned them up and then went for the station.

Thanks again for the advice all, it really helped!