A simple guide to Reputation

[kkrabbit]

Reputation in an MMO is a means of measuring how much a given faction likes you. In PotBS there are many different factions with which you can gain or lose reputation and each one has a different effect. To simplify this I have placed reputation into four different "categories" which are Navies, Trade Unions, Trade Companies, and Religious/Other.

Navies
Each of the four nations has a Navy. These ships are fairly easy to identify on the open sea as French Navy, British Navy, Spanish Navy, or Brethren of the Coast. The Navies are the military backbone of a nation and the ships most likely to attack you if your reputation is very bad with that nation. In order to not be openly attacked on the open sea by a nation's Navy, you must keep your repuation above -2500 with the appropriate Navy group. Upon reaching zero reputation with an enemy nation's Navy, you cannot gain any further reputation with them.

Trade Unions
Each of the four nations has a Trade Union. These are the French Trade Union, British Trade Union, Spainish Trade Union, and Smuggler's Union. Trade Unions are essentially groups of NPC Freetraders which constitue the majority of trade in the Carribean. Your repuation with a nation's Trade Union affects your ability to use that nation's Auction Houses. In order to have access to a nation's Auction Houses you must keep your repuation above -500 with the appropriate Trade Union. Also, for Freetraders, it has been stated that obtaining very high repuation with a nation's Trade Union will open up extra high level missions. I do not have all the info on these right now but will update this guide when I do.

Trade Companies
There are four Trade Companies in the game. These are the French Mississippi Company, British East Inida Company, Spanish House of Trade, and Dutch West India Company. Trade Companies control most of the shipping between the Carribean and Europe. Your repuation with a nation's Trade Company affects your ability to use their European Traders and in the case of the Dutch WIC your ability to use the Oranjistad auction house. You must maintain at least -500 repuation to use the Euro traders and the Oranjistad AH. Additionally, the better your repuation with a given Trade Company, the better rate of exchange you recieve with the associated European Traders. For each repuation level you gain above Indifferent the rate of exchange lowers by 1/7, meaning it takes 1/7 less material input to recieve the same output.

Religious/Other
This category is reserved for all remaining factions such as the Inquisition, Knights of St George, British Royal Society, and others. I currently do not know the benifits and drawbacks to repuation with these factions but will update this guide when I do find out.

To identify which faction a ship or NPC belongs to, just check the tag under it's name. It will say something like "French Trade Union" or "Brethren of the Coast." Keep in mind that not all ships are intuitive as to what faction they belong to. For instance, Arms Merchants and Contrabandistas/Contrabandiers/Bootleggers/Smugglers are all a part of Trade Unions, while Spice Convoys and Treasure Convoys are a part of Trade Companies.

Although repuation is measured in numbers, there are also several distinct "levels" of repuation which can be achieved upon reaching certain numbers. Those levels are as follows:

Less than -2500: Loathed
-2500 to -500: Distrusted
-500 to +500: Indifferent
+500 to +2500: Trusted
+2500 to +4500: Esteemed
More than +4500: Celebrated

Now that you have all this information about what reputation is and what it effects, the next natural question is how do you gain and lose it? The most common way to gain/lose repuation is by attacking ships. Almost all ships in the game will have you gain or lose repuation with a given group, with the following exceptions:
*Killing NPC Privateers has no effect on repuation.
*Killing players has no effect on repuation.
*Killing ships in most mission encounters has no effect on repuation

Also, many nation's normal (non-repeatble) quests can provide repuation with various groups related to that nation. In particular, every Freetrader career quest provides Trade Union reputation with the player's national Trade Union and every Naval Officer career quest provides repuation with the player's national Navy.

The following is a list of what can be done repeatedly to gain repuation with any given faction.

(note: This list is not comprehensive and I will update it as I gain more information)

To gain repuation with the Spanish Royal Navy:
Kill Los Ladrones Ships
Kill Sons of Cortez ships
Kill Corsairs of the Main ships
Kill Hijos Verdederos ships
Kill British Navy ships
Kill Brethren ships
Do any of the Pirate Hunting quests from Spanish Ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from Spanish Clerks

To gain reputation with the Spanish Trade Union:
Kill Hijos Verdederos ships
Kill Smugglers Union ships
Do any of the Junk Dealer quests in Spanish ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from Spanish Clerks

To gain reputation with the Spanish House of Trade:
Kill Hijos Verdederos ships
Kill French Mississippi Company ships
Kill Dutch West India Company ships
Kill British East India Company ships
Do any of the Bounty missions from Spanish Clerks
---
To gain repuation with the French Royal Navy:
Kill Bloody Arms ships
Kill Swampcat ships
Kill Samedian ships
Kill La Confrérie Libre ships
Kill British Navy ships
Kill Brethren ships
Do any of the Pirate Hunting quests from French ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from French Clerks

To gain reputation with the French Trade Union:
Kill Smugglers Union ships
Kill La Confrérie Libre ships
Do any of the Junk Dealer quests in French ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from French Clerks

To gain reputation with the French Mississippi Company:
Kill La Confrérie Libre ships
Kill British East India Company ships
Kill Dutch West India Company ships
Kill Spanish House of Trade ships
Do any of the Bounty missions from French Clerks
---
To gain repuation with the British Royal Navy:
Kill Drakesmen ships
Kill Sons of Cortez ships
Kill Merrymen ships
Kill Lost Ironsides ships
Kill French Navy ships
Kill Brethren ships
Do any of the Pirate Hunting quests from British ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from British Clerks

To gain reputation with the British Trade Union:
Kill Merrymen ships
Kill Lost Ironsides ships
Kill Smugglers Union ships
Do any of the Junk Dealer quests in British ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from British Clerks

To gain reputation with the British East India Company:
Kill Merrymen ships
Kill Lost Ironsides ships
Kill French Mississippi Company ships
Kill Dutch West India Company ships
Kill Spanish House of Trade ships
Do any of the Bounty missions from British Clerks
---
To gain repuation with the Brethren:
Kill Bloody Arms ships
Kill Sharktooth Raiders ships
Kill Mithridite ships
Kill Merrymen ships
Kill Varygas ships
Kill British Navy ships
Kill French Navy ships
Kill Spanish Navy ships
Do any of the Pirate Hunting quests from Pirate ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from Pirate Clerks

To gain reputation with the Smuggler's Union:
Kill Merrymen ships
Kill Varygas ships
Kill French Trade Union ships
Kill British Trade Union Ships
Kill Spanish Trade Union ships
Do any of the Fence quests in Pirate ports
Do any of the Bounty missions from Pirate Clerks

To gain reputation with the Dutch West India Company:
Kill British East India Company ships
Kill French Mississippi Company ships
Kill Spanish House of Trade ships

Remember: Killing ships in any of the above factions will cause your repuation with that faction to decrease. So, choose wisely what you want to sink.


If you see information here that is incorrect or missing (which I know a lot is) please to send me a PM with updated information. I greatly appreciate any assistance in making this guide as informative as possible.

A special thanks to http://www.potbswiki.com and http://www.merchantsoftheburningsea.com which have provided me with several key pieces of information for this guide.

[Quilliam]

Thanks for doing this!

I had been looking to see if there was any other way to raise rep as a pirate other than killing red sail ships (the ones that raise rep with unions...).

Looks like I can't!

[CutlassJack]

Excellent guide Andre! Nice work.

[Pops]

Nice job, I avoided killing almost everything out of fear of ruining rep.

[ShenMolo]

Thanks for the guide, very helpful!

[Kitty Luckshot]

Some testing showed that if a npc abandons ship, then there's no reputation gain or loss.

I tried this with French Missisippi Co. merchants, one abandoned ship and there was no reputation messages in the log. The next was boarded and defeated, and I got logs that showed gain with the other 3 Euro companies and loss with FMC.

[karkh]

I don't think you are correct Kitty, I managed to get high spanish rep by pretty much exclusively getting Hijos to abandon, not by boarding.

To Andy, good guide. You are missing Lost Ironsides though, and a comment saying the french orange sail rep pirates are not spawning. La Confrérie Libre.

[Coulette]

Merrymen gives bonus to the various british factions, not pirate.

[kkrabbit]

Originally Posted by Kitty Luckshot Some testing showed that if a npc abandons ship, then there's no reputation gain or loss. I tried this with French Missisippi Co. merchants, one abandoned ship and there was no reputation messages in the log. The next was boarded and defeated, and I got logs that showed gain with the other 3 Euro companies and loss with FMC.

This is most likely due to your level difference with each ship. Ships that are much lower than you do not give XP or rep. Thanks for brining this up though, I will add the no XP=no rep info to the guide.

Originally Posted by karkh I don't think you are correct Kitty, I managed to get high spanish rep by pretty much exclusively getting Hijos to abandon, not by boarding. To Andy, good guide. You are missing Lost Ironsides though, and a comment saying the french orange sail rep pirates are not spawning. La Confrérie Libre.

I would have included Lost Ironsides if I knew what rep they gave. My highest level character so far was a 30 from open beta, so Im not very aware of some of the high level mobs. If you would be so kind as to provide me with that info, I will update the guide.

Originally Posted by Coulette Merrymen gives bonus to the various british factions, not pirate.

I have seen from different posts that the Merrymen give Pirate and the Varygas British. I have also seen it the other way around. Since I have never personally killed any of these ships, I do not know for certain. If I am given multiple sources of info on something I tend to take the consensus. However, if I am provided with some concrete information on these two pirates (such as a screenshot after a killing) I will be more than willing to change the guide.

[phoulish]

Originally Posted by andy52584 I have seen from different posts that the Merrymen give Pirate and the Varygas British. I have also seen it the other way around. Since I have never personally killed any of these ships, I do not know for certain. If I am given multiple sources of info on something I tend to take the consensus. However, if I am provided with some concrete information on these two pirates (such as a screenshot after a killing) I will be more than willing to change the guide.

Having killed all the above (no screenshots though never felt the need for them):

Merrymen = British
Varyags = Pirate
Lost Ironsides = British

I'm a Pirate with access to British & Spanish AH's if that counts for anything ;p

It's a very useful guide as is, even if there are some inaccuracies. Good work mate!