Oolite Bulletins

I was browsing my current save file and stumbled upon this reputation entry. I guess that stores the number of successful cargo and passenger contracts. Now the thing is that I've tried the advise that contracts get better once I've completed a few of them, so I ran 4-5 cargo contracts, all successful, and roughly 20 passenger contracts, of which I missed the deadline in 3 or 4 cases. How does this relate to the entry in my save file?

<key>reputation</key>
<dict>
<key>contracts_expired</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>contracts_fulfilled</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>contracts_unknown</key>
<integer>7</integer>
<key>passage_expired</key>
<integer>0</integer>
<key>passage_fulfilled</key>
<integer>5</integer>
<key>passage_unknown</key>
<integer>2</integer>
</dict>

I thought that maybe not fulfilling a contract will reset the count to 0 or something, but that's not the case. After shipping one more passenger the passage_filfilled increased to 6 and the passage_unknown decreased to 1. Now I'm out of theories

Regards, F.

Hi, Frunobulax!

First of all your guess is correct: the reputation does store your cargo and passenger contracts. They are handled in exactly the same way.

In the beginning both "unknown"-counters are set to 7, the rest to 0. For every successfull delivery the "fulfilled"-counter is increased by 1, for every missed deadline the "expired"-counter is increased by 1. In both cases the "unknown"-counter is decreased by 1. (That's what you observed by shipping another passenger.)

Now the thing is that for your reputation not all your contracts are stored, but as a maximum the last seven only. So none of the counters can ever exceed 7. (If you manually set one of the counters to let's say 10, save the file, play the game, save your pilot and open the file again, its value will be restored to a maximum of 7, I believe.)

And the second thing is that your contracts are not stored forever. After a certain amount of time or of jumps (I'm not sure which it is and what amount) the "expired"- and "fulfilled"-counters will decrease again and the "unknown"-counters increase. In game-perspective: Neither a good nor a bad reputation lasts forever. People forget. So a good reputation needs to be kept up continuously by taking and fulfilling new contracts. And a bad reputation will wane eventually.

So I guess your pilot-file reflects that you did some cargo contracts some time ago, but the memories to that have already faded, so they don't influence your reputation anymore. And the same goes to the passenger contracts; only the last five (now six) are still remembered and thus influence your reputation.

That's it.

And if you want my general opinion on contracts: Do the cargo contracts, stay away from passenger contracts. They are not worth it, as each passenger berth takes away 5t of cargo space that could bring you a profit of about 150cr each jump in normal trading, which is in no relation at all to the few credits a passenger will pay you for occupying this space for many jumps. And even with the best reputation the fees stay fairly low. On the other hand side with a good reputation you will get cargo contracts that rock!

What an exceptionally good answer, thanks for illuminating us.

Howdy,

Commander McLane wrote:

In the beginning both "unknown"-counters are set to 7, the rest to 0. For every successfull delivery the "fulfilled"-counter is increased by 1, for every missed deadline the "expired"-counter is increased by 1. In both cases the "unknown"-counter is decreased by 1. (That's what you observed by shipping another passenger.)

[...]

And the second thing is that your contracts are not stored forever. After a certain amount of time or of jumps (I'm not sure which it is and what amount) the "expired"- and "fulfilled"-counters will decrease again and the "unknown"-counters increase. In game-perspective: Neither a good nor a bad reputation lasts forever.

Ah, thanks a lot. The last cargo contract was not that long ago, but I never did many cargo contracts - most exceeded the capacity of my puny Python. But now that I've got a shiny new Boa Class Cruiser (and no longer any cash) I may give it a try - got to earn the credits to jump to galaxy 7

Regards, F.