X2: How much do NPC ships influence your ranks?

[HashtagMC]

"NPC" here meaning "my ships that run on autopilot".

I assumed that my M6, which are on sector patrol duty around my factories, would blow up my combat rankings like whoa, considering they rack up Khaak and Pirate kills in the hundreds. But that doesn't seem to be the case. Likewise, it appears that while my trading ships do increase my trading rank, they don't increase my reputation with any of the factions. If I spend 30 million credits with any one species, I would probably speedrun through three or four reputation levels, but my universe traders have spent a combined 300 million credits in all nations' territories and my rankings haven't changed one bit.

So, is that a bug or do NPC/autopilot ships really not affect any rankings save merchant? Or do they count only to a lesser degree? I'm a little confused.

[jlehtone]

Combat rank comes only from personal kills (i.e. what the ship flown by you does).
Trade rank comes from also (and mostly) from your NPC ships' trades.
Reputation ... cannot remember (been near 25 years, and I focused on personal action).

[RainerPrem]

Reputation ... cannot remember (been near 25 years, and I focused on personal action).

The stations' blackboards have "missions" to donate money. This is the quickest way to massively increase reputation.

[HashtagMC]

Reputation ... cannot remember (been near 25 years, and I focused on personal action).

The stations' blackboards have "missions" to donate money. This is the quickest way to massively increase reputation.

In X²? I have over 400 hours in the game and while it's been some time since my last X² phase, I don't recall any such missions. Bret even says the only way to gain Paranid reputation is to kill pirates during the story missions.

[jlehtone]

Gosh, my math ... 2025-2005 equals 20, not 25.

Anyway, I don't think that X2 nor X3R had such donate/bribe option. Later X3s, perhaps.

X3's, and definitely X4 do yield reputation from (NPC) trades.

IIRC, the trade rank increases did require sufficient amount of "good" trades, i.e. buying clearly below the "average" price and selling above the average. Furthermore, the UT were probably rigged to do only "good" trades.

My preferred way to gain reputation were the assassination missions (as in X2 and X3R they did give rather than reduce reputation -- in later games some parties dislike your actions).

[HashtagMC]

Gosh, my math ... 2025-2005 equals 20, not 25.

Anyway, I don't think that X2 nor X3R had such donate/bribe option. Later X3s, perhaps.

X3's, and definitely X4 do yield reputation from (NPC) trades.

IIRC, the trade rank increases did require sufficient amount of "good" trades, i.e. buying clearly below the "average" price and selling above the average. Furthermore, the UT were probably rigged to do only "good" trades.

My preferred way to gain reputation were the assassination missions (as in X2 and X3R they did give rather than reduce reputation -- in later games some parties dislike your actions).

Oh yeah, I love the assassination missions… I keep looking for them, sadly quite rare, but I didn't realise they confer reputation as well! That's neat, I'm already doing those.

[jlehtone]

The FAQ https://www.egosoft.com/support/faq/faq ... &version=4 does mention "Trade", but not whether "NPC Trade" affects reputation.


The assassination mark and its escorts are actually "no-race", so nobody cares that they get killed, unlike for example a kill of Paranid freighter in Argon space (where you lose with Paranid and gain with Argon). The escorts do also have a small (say 2%) chance to bail. I did get my first M6 (an Osprey) that way. In X3TC and later the mark is member of race and therefore the kill drops reputation with that race.