Stuck in the starting area because I don’t have an agent

[MrKincaid]

Im still trying to leave the starting area in Farnhams Legacy. I built the bifurcation station and brought the resources. Now the game wants me to get better reputation with the paranids to get access to their sectors for which I need an agent.

I know you get an Agent in a previous mission, but the game isn’t very good in explaining how it works and so I used that agents last task without knowing that removes the agent for good. Now I have 900 influence with the paranids and I’m at 79% unworthy whatever it’s called in English.

The only way to get another agent I see is some certain missions that are available from time to time but these missions always require a TP and guess what I don’t have access to?

Unless there’s another way to get an agent or TP I’m not aware of this is pretty bad game design. You should either get the agent later, it should be better explained how agents work, especially that they can deplete, or there should be another way to get agents.

Edit: I loaded a previous save and got my reputation with the paranids up before I got the mission to get a better reputation. Now I’m docked at the Paranid trading station and look at my mission log that says I should raise my reputation until I can dock at the paranid trading station…

I get that this game is based on an 18 year old game but I didn’t expect it to play like an 18 year old game…

[Cycrow]

That sounds more like a bug, it shouldn't be possible to use the agent for anything else. As it locks the initial tasks to prevent you from using it for anything else.

It's not something ive been able to reproduce

[MrKincaid]

The first time you use it you can’t do anything but have him get influence 3 times. The next time you can only let him get more reputation once for all the 600 influence you got. That isn’t enough to get a rank that allows me to dock at the paranid station. After that you are free to use them as you like and he has 4 tasks left. So if your dumb like me and let him get influence four times you have almost max influence but no agent to get better relation.

But, even if the forced tasks would be enough I would still be in the same situation as I’m now because of course I’d do that as soon as I get the agent and then you’re stuck with the mission that wants you to raise the reputation until you can dock even though you already can dock.

[Cycrow]

The forced tasks should be enough to get you the rep you need.

The mission didn't continue when you docked at the station ?

You should still be able to get more agents, the are also found from station defense missions that should get in Paranid space (which can also gain you extra rep too)

And you can sometimes find them available from the explorers guild

[MrKincaid]

The forced tasks should be enough to get you the rep you need.

But they didn’t. And I didn’t do anything that would reduce my reputation. No fights or anything. All I did was missions and trading. I don’t know if Reputation goes down over time, if yes that might be the problem because I took my time doing trades. But that would still be bad game design, you shouldn’t be soft locked just because you didn’t rush through the missions.

The mission didn't continue when you docked at the station ?

As I said, I was docked at the station while I checked my log that said I have to get enough reputation to dock at that station.

Is the starting ship even good enough to do Station defense missions? I’ll try tomorrow, else i can still load the save again and wait until I get the mission before I use the agent. But it sucks to have to play the same part of the game three times. And who knows if that happens again with another mission in the future?

Edit: I built a scorpion and did a station defense mission. One was enough to bring my reputation up for one level which triggered completion of my current mission and the start of the mission that wants me to dock at the trading station. So I can proceed, but only because I still had a save from before I used the agent. Without that save I couldn’t do that mission in the paranid sector and I’d have to restart from the beginning.

[rudi_pioneer]

This bug is because later unofficial patch changed how much notoriety is needed in lower ranks. Using aagent most efficiently requires few paranid missions