Forums » Suggestions

speeding up faction points

Nov 28, 2004 ananzi link
I would like to know if anyone has ideas about how to get faction points faster at the various corporations where faction is only gainable via trade. For example, Axia, Valent, BioComm, and etc.

We all know its a pain in the butt, with an estimated 8-10 hours of suboptimal trade missions to raise faction from 0 to 800.

Here are my ideas to speed things up.

1. Dont take long distance missions.

Even a mission with destination 1 system away will give 7-8 points of faction. A mission with destination 5 systems away will give roughly the same mount of points, maybe a few more, like 10 points. However, the long distance missions can take as much time as 3 separate short-hop missions. If you are offered a long-distance mission, just decline, leave the station, and come back. The next mission you ask for will be different.

2. Stockpile items at the corporation base, then use them for certain 'fetch' missions.

First of all, pick one or two corporation bases to be your 'stockpiling base'. Now, bring a lot of items there, that the station doesnt have, and stockpile them. A good way to do this is to go on 'fetch us stuff' trade missions, buy extra items, then unload them, but dont sell them, when you get back. Also check the Vendetta Trade Goods database to keep your eye out for items the station doesn't have. (see the 'community projects recognition' thread at the top of the 'general' message board for a link)

Later on, after many trade missions, they will probably ask you to do another 'fetch us stuff' trade mission. But they might say something to indicate that they dont care where you get the items from. For example, if they say "go to d-9 Itan and buy item x. we cant contact our agents. You will have to buy the goods yourself", it means that they dont care where you get the items. Or, they will say something like "we need 9 crates of x, there are some for sale in blah blah blah system". In these special trade missions, it doesnt matter where you get the cargo.

So you are going to get it from the closet place possible, the stockpile you have been keeping on the station itself.

Load your ship from your stockpile with the requested items. Leave station, then immediately re-enter the station. Congratulations, you have just got 7-8 faction points in about 20 seconds.

Note: Do not confuse these special 'fetch us stuff' missions with the explicit 'fetch us stuff from abc' missions. These will state clearly that you are required to visit a remote station. For example, it might say "Go to Dau L10 and pick up a shipment". On these missions the stockpiling trick will not work. You have to actually go to the destination station. It's all in the wording.

3. Dont do the 'we may have more work for you' missions.

These missions come in a seuquence of separate missions, sometimes as long as three. After you finish the first mission, it will ask you 'do you want to go on another mission for us'? And so on and so forth. Always hit 'no' here, or just dont accept this type of mission in the first place. Why?

a. These missions do not give any more faction points than the normal missions. But they have many disadvantages over shorter missions, as listed below.

b. These missions can take you farther and farther away from the systems where the corporations bases are. So after you finish the last mission in a sequence, you may find that you are ten systems away from the nearest corporation base. Thus you will have to spend half an hour working your way back to a corporate station, but you wont be generating any faction points.

c. There is a risk you will get 0 faction points. For these sequences of trade missions, you never get any faction points until the last mission is over. If you get 3 of these 'We have more work for you. Accept?" missions in a row, and it has taken you 30 minutes to do them, and you are 1 sector away from finishing the last mission, but your computer crashes, then you will get a big fat 0 increase in faction. Why? Because when you logoff Vendetta for any reason, your trade missions all get cancelled.

None of these problems occur if you stick to single missions, or hit 'n' when they ask you if you want to continue.

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To sum up... Only do short trade missions with destinations 1-2 systems away, and stockpile goods at a corporate station for use during certain 'fetch' missions.

If anyone sees an error in my logic, or has any other ideas on how to speed up faction-point building, please post them below. Thanks.
Nov 28, 2004 sarahanne link
[moved to suggestions]
Nov 28, 2004 ananzi link
err.. this was not a suggestion for the developers.. it was supposed to be a discussion of how to play the game with others players... err..
Nov 28, 2004 Soltis link
Right now, this almost borders on exploit(due to the ability to re-enter the base repeatedly to get the 'right' mission).

However, it's also the only reasonable way to gain faction.

Does anyone else but me see the problem here?

Edit: I think having choices in trade missions would be a good thing, though - just generate 4 or 5 trade missions every time someone enters the station, and let them choose which to do. Stacking trade missions would be cool, too, since it's always more efficient to stock up, work out a route, then execute it.

In a more sane setting, have you ever even HEARD of a merchant only having one outstanding contract at a time? Not unless they want to go bankrupt.

Of course, in the real world, these contracts have time limits... but not all of them, and the skill of being a merchant is coordinating these time limits - "I know I can get this done in this time, and then it'll only take me that much longer to get these goods and deliver them over here..."

I think having time-limited trading missions, which you can take a few of at once, would be really interesting - having to balance the chance to get more faction/money against the chance of failing and losing faction(or barely breaking even).
Nov 29, 2004 ananzi link
again let me point out that this post has been put in the wrong forum.
Nov 29, 2004 Soltis link
Yeah, I know. Maybe you ought to repost it in the right place, with clarafication that it's a HOWTO for players, not a list of suggestions for the devs.