A simple guide to Reputation

[kkrabbit]

After my last post I went in-game and did some consnsus gathering on two different servers which led me to update the guide with the Merrymen, Vargas, and Lost Ironsides updated to reflect what I have learned. As always, thanks for your responses in helping me improve this. I'd like this guide to be as useful (and accurate) as possible.

[keline]

The non-Brethren pirates that give French faction are currently not in the game.

[Vixentrox]

Good to know stuff! Now if we knew what each ports junk merchant quest was!

[phoulish]

This thread may be of help with that Vixen:

http://burningsea.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4827

I posted a spreadsheet I found in the open beta on the fence/junk dealer rep based missions at post 5 or 6. There are also links to wiki references.

[Eric1201]

Originally Posted by 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!

There is a mission chain in I think St. Rose's Bay which rewards you with an item that when used increases your rep with all the trade factions by a fairly substantial amount.

[Quilliam]

Thanks Eric! I'll go check that out after the patch.

[bonelizzard]

Nice guide.

Would be great if you could add the contention scored by different nations ships.

[kkrabbit]

Originally Posted by bonelizzard Nice guide. Would be great if you could add the contention scored by different nations ships.

I admit that the contention information would be useful to many people, however it really has nothing to do with reputation. As far as I know, contention is entirely based on ship levels involved and nothing else.

[Garbad_the_Weak]

Originally Posted by andy52584 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 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. 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. 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 may 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. 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 any ship which would normally not grant you experience points will also not increase or decrease your reputation with anyone. *Killing ships in most mission encounters has no effect on repuation The following is a list of what can be done 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 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 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 --- To gain repuation with the French Royal Navy: Kill Bloody Arms ships Kill Swampcat ships Kill British Navy ships Kill Brethren ships Do any of the Pirate Hunting quests from French ports To gain reputation with the French Trade Union: Kill Smugglers Union ships Do any of the Junk Dealer quests in French ports To gain reputation with the French Mississippi Company: Kill British East India Company ships Kill Dutch West India Company ships Kill Spanish House of Trade ships --- 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 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 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 --- To gain repuation with the Brethren: Kill Bloody Arms ships Kill Sharktooth Raiders 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 French ports 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 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) feel free to send me a PM with updated information. 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.

Excellent post -- concise and practical. I can confirm that there are missions based on trade standing with the Spanish Trade union. There is a long series that starts in Havana, with some very nice rewards. The only bad side is they hit your standing with other trade unions in some parts. I am celebrated with Spain.

[Guardian1982]

Thank You

...Is there any point in having high reputation with Navy? Or Trade Unions for non-freetraders?

Any new info about relationships with religious ones? Or perhaps it's a thing to be expanded in the future?