Reputation & Alignment

Reputation

Reputation in Fugari Wars is not a morality score — it is a record of how you operate in the galaxy, and it shapes what the galaxy offers you in return. It moves in both directions. Both extremes unlock powerful things. The space between them is where most pilots spend their entire careers, wondering which way to lean.

The Reputation Scale

Your reputation is a single integer that can rise high into positive territory or fall deep into negative. Every significant action carries a rep modifier.

There is no hard rule about which direction to go. Both paths reach the endgame. Both paths can contribute to the Fugari planet assault. The difference is texture: what the galaxy looks like around you, who helps you, who hunts you, and what the Realm Report says about you when you do something notable.

The Good Path

Rising reputation comes from playing the legitimate economy. Primary sources that push rep upward:

Trading is consistent — a pilot running regular routes accumulates rep steadily. Fugari assault gives rep in three tiers depending on how far into the structure you destroy.

Trade gains taper as you rise. Commerce is how you establish yourself, not how you reach the top:

The milestone that matters most on the good path is +100 (Good Standing), which opens Accord HQ; +450, which unlocks the Leviathan; and +500 (Accord Commission), which grants Commission perks (not the hull gate).

Trading alone plateaus at +450 and cannot reach Commission. The last stretch to +500 comes from Fugari kills and purges — the Accord grants its Commission for confronting the thing it actually fears, not for volume of commerce.

It also means the rogue path can never close behind you by accident. Raiding is refused only at +1000, and commerce stops paying at +450, so no amount of trading can reach the threshold that would take raiding away from you. Getting there at all requires deliberately hunting the Fugari — and by then you have chosen a side.

Standing drifts toward neutral

Reputation is maintained, not banked. At each epoch reset every pilot's standing moves 1% of the way back toward 0, from whichever side they're on. At the standard 12-hour epoch that's roughly 2% per day, so a pilot who stops playing drifts back toward neutral over about a month rather than holding Commission or Outlaw status forever.

The drift is slow enough that it never undoes an active session's work — it exists so that standing reflects who you are now, and so that no threshold is permanent. It is one of three things that keep the good path from becoming a trap: the taper stops you crossing thresholds you never chose, the drift means none of them are permanent, and the split between the Commission threshold and the raid block (below) means being well-regarded never takes an option away from you.

The Rogue Path

Falling reputation starts the moment you do something the Accord disapproves of — and it happens as a consequence, not a prerequisite. Port raids are available to any pilot; the act of raiding is what costs rep. PvP combat itself does not touch reputation — see Combat — so ship-to-ship fights don't push you down this path on their own. Syndicate betrayal costs −100 rep. Each infraction deepens the path, and each threshold crossed opens new consequences.

The prices, in full:

The rogue path has real advantages. Port raids can net large resource hauls in a single turn sequence. The Heretic at -500 is a genuine combat platform, cheaper than the Leviathan and faster, with the specific niche of being terrifying to face and practically impossible to sneak up on (since everyone knows where you are anyway).

The disadvantages are systemic and compounding:

• -100 (Rogue): Trade rep gains stop — you no longer climb through commerce. (Note the epoch drift still pulls you back toward neutral, so deep rogue standing has to be maintained by continuing to act the part.)
• -100 (Black Market): The Black Market opens at the Nexus. (Raiding itself is not gated here — it's available from any rep below 1000. See Disapproval is a price below.)
• -200 (Deep Rogue): Shipyard costs increase. You pay a premium to maintain your hull.
• -350 (Hardened): Escalating outlaw status — no additional trade restriction beyond the per-port hostility flags described below.
• -500 (Outlaw): Heretic unlock available. The Accord considers you beyond redemption.

Disapproval is a price, not a wall

Two different thresholds do two different jobs, and they used to be the same number:

Between them is a wide band where a well-regarded pilot can raid and simply pays for it. Every port breach is −20, so from the raid block it takes 25 breaches to spend your way out of Commission perks.

That the two numbers used to be one made the good path a trap. Every action that lowers rep is a hostile port action — and the same threshold that granted Commission also forbade those actions. A trader who crossed +500 without ever choosing to could not come back down: the only doors out were the ones the gate had locked. Splitting them turns a wall into a slope you can choose to walk down.

Is 25 breaches actually a price? Measured on the live galaxy: a port breach takes 30% of the target's register, and the average port register is ~1.24M, so one breach is worth roughly 373,000 credits. Against that, an actively-trading pilot moves ~2.4M credits of cargo per epoch, and Commission is worth ten percentage points more than Good Standing on every sale — about 237,000 credits per epoch.

Note that the sell bonus is the only thing at stake. Accord HQ access, the bounty board and the Accord bank yield all key off Good Standing (+100), not Commission, so a pilot who raids their way from +1000 down to +499 keeps every one of them.

So spending the whole band nets about 9.3M in loot, and the perk you give up pays that back in roughly 39 epochs. With a 100-epoch cycle, the choice genuinely inverts partway through: early in a cycle, keeping Commission is worth more than raiding it away; late in a cycle, when there aren't 39 epochs left to earn it back, cashing out is correct. That is the intended shape — a decision that changes with the clock rather than a permanent right answer.

The break-even scales with how much you actually trade. A pilot running constant routes should keep their standing; one who trades occasionally will find the loot worth more than the bonus much sooner.

Renouncing your standing

If you want the rogue path and your standing is in the way, you can give it up on purpose. Renunciation drops you straight to −150, inside the Rogue band — Black Market open, trade rep gains stopped, the rogue path in front of you.

It deliberately lands you below the −100 boundary rather than on it. Standing drifts back toward neutral every epoch, so landing exactly on the line would put you back outside Rogue at the very next reset — the act would undo itself within hours. From −150 the drift takes about 34 epochs to reach the boundary, which is real runway. It stops there: Deep Rogue, Hardened and Outlaw are still earned by acting the part. Renunciation is a door, not an elevator.

Two things make it a real decision rather than a switch. It requires an explicit confirmation, and there is a cooldown of one epoch between renunciations. More to the point, it is close to one-way: at −100 trading grants no rep at all, so the climb back to Commission runs through Fugari kills, bounty collection and contracts rather than commerce.

The rogue path is not for players who want consistent, predictable income. It rewards adaptability, risk tolerance, and the ability to operate under pressure — because at Outlaw status, you are under constant pressure.

The Heretic vs. Leviathan Divergence

These are not just different ship unlocks. They are the game's two competing endgame fantasies.

Leviathan pilots are the galaxy's defenders — the ones who earned Accord trust, built reputation through legitimate play, and now fly the most powerful sanctioned hull in existence. The Leviathan assault on the Fugari planet is a coalition battle, organized, with the Accord's blessing.

Heretic pilots reached rep ≤ −500 and unlocked the rogue path's endgame hull. The assault from the Heretic side is a solo or rogue-syndicate push into the Coreward dead-end, hunted by half the galaxy, racing to land the killing blow before being caught.

Both paths converge on the same node. The planet dies the same way regardless of who fires.

Port Access and Rep Refusals

There's no reputation floor that locks you out of every port at once — trading itself stays available no matter how deep into rogue territory you run. What actually restricts access is per-port: raid a specific port and it refuses to buy your cargo for the rest of that epoch. Get flagged hostile at a port (from a raid bust or a port-combat incident) and, while your rep sits below +100, that specific port refuses to deal with you until the flag clears — with a Bust Scrubber from the Black Market, or by waiting it out.

Reach +100 (Good Standing) and hostile flags stop mattering entirely — the Accord's trust bypasses them (see Accord Trade Perks, below). Deep negative rep doesn't close doors everywhere; it closes the doors you've personally kicked in, and keeps them shut until you climb back to Good Standing.

Reputation and New Players

You start at 0 — neutral. The first meaningful decision point is simple: do you ever raid a port? Port raids are available immediately — no prerequisite. But the act itself costs rep, and once you've crossed into negative territory, the penalties accumulate. Choosing not to raid keeps you on the upward track.

PvP combat itself never changes reputation, win or lose — see Combat. Raiding is what pulls you negative, and it's available from turn one, no rep floor required to start. A pilot who fights other players but never raids a port stays exactly where their trading left them.

Most new players stay neutral for their first few sessions, learning the game before committing to a direction. This is sensible. Both paths require investment — the good path requires consistent, clean play toward +500; the rogue path requires the combat skills and risk tolerance to operate under escalating pressure. Neither is a decision to regret, but both are decisions to make deliberately.

Accord Trade Perks

Rising through Accord standing unlocks tangible economic bonuses. These apply automatically — no activation required.

The sell price bonus stacks with mastery bonuses and trade event modifiers. A Commission pilot with Trade Master mastery running a trade event route earns significantly more per unit than any other pilot in the galaxy.

The hostile port bypass means Accord pilots can continue trading at a port even after being flagged from a raid bust or port combat incident. The port trusts your standing — rogue pilots must use a Bust Scrubber from the Black Market to clear the flag.

Accord Contracts

At Good Standing (rep >= 100), pilots gain access to the Accord Contract Board. Each epoch generates 3 random contracts: patrol routes, supply runs, intel missions, port defense assignments, and bounty hunts. Contracts reward credits and reputation, providing repeatable income that scales with active play. See the Accord Contracts doc for the full system.

The Bounty Board

The Accord maintains a bounty board at HQ, visible to any pilot with Good Standing (rep >= 100). The board lists wanted posters for rogue pilots whose hostile activity has drawn enough attention.

How Bounties Appear

Every hour, the system evaluates all rogue players (rep < 0) and posts bounties on anyone whose heat score exceeds the threshold. Heat accumulates from hostile actions: port raids, PvP kills, port breaches and destructions, and planet raids. Each action adds a base heat value.

Streak escalation makes sustained aggression dangerous. If a pilot commits another hostile act within 30 minutes of the last, the heat streak counter grows and each subsequent action applies a 1.5x compounding multiplier. A pilot on a 3-streak earns 1.5^3 = 3.375x the base heat from their next hostile action.

Bounty Reward Value

The reward for each bounty is calculated from a base amount plus a fraction of the target's wealth (credits + bank), scaled by a heat multiplier. The heat multiplier rises with heat score, up to a 5x cap. High-heat targets with deep pockets generate the largest bounties in the galaxy.

Collecting Bounties

Any Accord pilot (rep >= 100) who delivers the killing blow on a bounty target collects the reward. On collection, the hunter receives the posted credits plus 50 reputation per bounty claimed. Multiple bounties can stack on a single target — killing them collects all active bounties at once.

Expiry and Tiers

Bounties expire after 24 epochs (12 days at the standard 12-hour epoch). If the target lays low long enough for their heat to decay and the bounty to expire, they escape the board.

Wanted posters display in four tiers based on heat score:

The bounty board is the Accord's enforcement mechanism — the galaxy's way of putting a price on chaos.