Firefly: The Game – Starter’s Guide, Part 3 – Contacts, Solid Rep, Jobs & Misbehaving

In Part 3, we will take a look at the Contacts who provide our Jobs as well as some examples of the Jobs themselves, and get an idea of what Misbehaving entails. Just be aware, this part’s quite a long’un…

JOBS

The saying is “Find a crew, find a job, keep flying”, but before we’ve managed to go anywhere in order to assemble our Crew, we’ll be handed some Jobs during game setup. Try downloading the best ets2 mods at ModsHost for more experience.

By default game setup rules, we receive 1 Job from each Contact, meaning we’ll have a total of 5 potential Jobs. Of these starter Jobs, we can discard any we don’t wish to take (they then go to the relevant Contact’s discard pile, available for anyone who wishes to visit and Deal with the Contact) but we cannot hold more than 3 Inactive Jobs in our hand at a time. Because we can’t start any Jobs immediately, this means that at least 2 of those starting Job Cards must be discarded right away. Before we delve into the Jobs themselves and what to consider with each, we’ll take a look at these aforementioned Contacts.

These five are our big Job providers, each with their own decks and separate locations on the board. The pictures above double as the backs of the Job cards and themselves display many salient details.

First off, the top-left contains a little symbol for each, which carries over to the other side for a quick glance method of determining which Job is whose.

Then, in the bottom-left, are details of where they can be found. Should we wish to take Jobs from them beyond our starter ones, we’re required to visit these locations and use a Deal Action. There is a specific mechanic linked to drawing and considering Jobs, but it also features into Buying from Supply Planets so we’ll go over that then. Note that Harken is on the Alliance Cruiser, which means we’ll trigger that Alliance Contact Event every time we visit. In other words, we’ll most likely want to make sure we’re not an Outlaw Ship and have all our papers in order (and no slouching!) before we go there.

Solid Reputation and associated benefits
Below their names, each has a special bonus that comes into effect when we have earned a Solid Reputation with them. Being Solid also grants us the ability to sell them Contraband and Cargo (while) using a Deal Action. The price a Contact will pay for those can be found in the red and blue boxes in the top-right of their respective cards. Harken is an Alliance Officer and, therefore, not a fence for goods. Instead, his Alliance Cruiser becomes a potential refuelling station, with Fuel sold at standard price. The helpful thing about selling these sorts of goods, over Working Jobs, is that our Crew doesn’t expect a cut; it’s all profit.

In order to solidify this relationship, we must have successfully completed a Job for them. The one exception here is Niska’s ‘Pound of Flesh’ condition, which is always in effect. He provides well-paying Jobs, but he has his own reputation to keep, so messing up any or attracting Alliance attention carries a hefty price. It’s worth clarifying that this special rule relates solely to Work Actions for his Jobs; receiving a Warrant during another Contact’s Job or while travelling will not trigger this effect.

When a Solid Reputation is achieved, we keep hold of the successfully completed Job card to signify this. It can be placed under the Ship Card, where the handy little cut-out is on the top-right, with the back facing up so the Contact’s relevant details are still visible, i.e. the special ability and the resell rates.

Bear in mind that Solid is not necessarily a Reputation’s natural state. It is lost if we receive a Warrant during a Work Action on one of their Jobs or via failing ‘Cover your Tracks’ Skill Tests if we take on Jobs where one Contact targets another (an example of one of those later). In Harken’s case, due to his Alliance Officer status and perhaps because all his Jobs are Legal (meaning no chance of being Issued a Warrant), a Solid Reputation with him is lost whenever a Warrant is received for anything. Whenever a Solid Reputation is lost, the Job card we were keeping to indicate this is now removed from the game; essentially, the Job was already completed and cannot be repeated.

Fortunately, re-earning a Solid Reputation is simply a matter of successfully completing another Job for that Contact (we’d first need to clear any Warrants in Harken’s case, though).

And so, onto the Jobs themselves. To start with, we have a very basic one available from Harken (identifiable by the Alliance symbol in the top left, and the blue background).

First off, we look at the top-right of the card, which tells us that the Job is perfectly Legal, meaning we won’t have to Misbehave (we’ll get to that) nor will it ask us to do anything that will cause us to run afoul of the Alliance.

Below that, we find the ‘Needs’ box (sometimes reserved for special Skill Tests and other extra requirements for completion instead). In this case, it is completely blank, meaning we’re free to start it immediately if we so wish. Other Jobs may require up to 2 Points in a certain Skill, a combination of those, or even special Gear and Keywords (we’ll see examples later). Needs must be met either by Crew themselves or Gear they’re carrying within the Crew we Assign for the Work Action in order to progress the Job.

For this Job, there are two stages, and both require a Work Action. Which means that if there were a requirement for 2 Tech Skill Points and we lost the Crew member that provided those while travelling between the Pick-Up and Drop-Off locations (they were Killed by Reavers, for example) then we’d need to replace them somehow before being able to complete the Drop-Off. Other things can cause us to lose Crew members between stages of a Job, but Legal Jobs are generally simpler, making those occasions rare. In this one, we wouldn’t even need to leave Alliance Space.

And in the bottom-right, we have the Pay Tab that tells us our Payout. As a simple Legal Job, without much risk or distance involved, it is suitably low but can make a good starting Job when we’re running a small Crew or with just our Leader. Plus, it would earn us that Solid Reputation with Harken, which allows us to avoid the ‘Customs Inspection’ Alliance Space Nav Card; handy for bypassing a normally unavoidable Full Stop while flying through Alliance Space as well as any potential trouble if we’re carrying illegal goods out in the open.

With those in mind, it’s then worth looking at what the Job entails. The first bar with the ‘Pick-Up’ title also contains the word ‘Shipping’, which is known as the Job Type. It may not seem too important, but since Burgess earns 1 Cargo for completing Shipping Jobs, and we know that Mal earns extra money for Jobs classed as ‘Crime’ (another Job Type), it’s handy to know. Depending on whether, and with whom, Burgess has Solid Reputations, this Cargo could then be sold for $400-600 without the Crew expecting a cut; potentially doubling this particular Job’s Payout.

But before we get ahead of ourselves, we look at the Pick-Up location. This tells us the planet or city (Londinium) and in which system it can be found (White Sun). At this location, it tells us to Load 1 Cargo. In order to do this, we need to Fly to the Pick-Up location, Assign Crew to complete the task and use a Work Action.

Now, because this Job has no Skill Needs, Misbehaving (more on that in a bit) or other special circumstances (Shepherd Book will not Work Immoral Jobs, for example), there is not such a worry when it comes to Assigning our Crew and sorting out what Gear we want them to carry. So, since we can assume that step is done we move onto the Work Action itself, which then distinguishes the Job as ‘Active’. Once a Job becomes Active the Job Card now leaves our hand and goes down on the table (therefore, viewable by everyone) and occupies 1 of our 3 Active Job slots to the left side of our Ship Card. Then we can load the Cargo token onto our Ship, ready for our next turn when we can take it to the Drop-Off location, which we can see is only one sector away in the same system. Once we arrive at the Drop-Off location, another Work Action is required in order to finish the Job and get our money.

Whenever we complete a Job, we must then pay all our Crew their cut, regardless of whether we felt they contributed much. If we completed this job with just Mal and Zoe, we know Mal’s a Leader and, therefore, doesn’t require a separate wage, but Zoe’s expected cut is in that purple tab on the bottom-right of her card. So, we can see that of this $600 Payout, half of it would go to Zoe. Sounds fair, right? But if we want to expand our Crew and purchase more Gear and Ship Upgrades so that we can work towards any Story Card goals, we’ll need much more substantial Jobs.

Of course, we can always opt not to pay certain Crew members their cut after a Job is completed, and instead cause them to become Disgruntled, placing a frowny face token on their respective cards. Doing so carries its own aforementioned risks (as covered in Part 1), but is an entirely valid option (or an inescapable one, should money be tight).

That was a very basic Legal Job, so let’s take a look at an Illegal one that throws a few more elements into the mix. As indicated by the envelope icon in the top-right, this one comes from Amnon Duul

Right away, we can see this is an Illegal Job due to that big red label in the top-right corner. Rather than affecting anything directly (except for one Story Card where a bonus applies), it is an immediate sign that we will probably have to Misbehave, along with a good chance that it will ask us to carry out tasks that would temporarily make ourselves an Outlaw Ship (as covered in Part 2), if we weren’t one already. Essentially, we are running with considerable risk now, and definitely don’t want to run into the Alliance.

If we’ve already noticed the Pick-Up and Drop-Off portions, we may think that this bears more than a passing similarity to the Shipping Job. And we wouldn’t be far wrong. Most of the game is built around ‘Pick-Up and Deliver’ mechanics, but what marks this one out is that element of crime, thus making its Job Type ‘Smuggling’ instead.

As we can see by the purple tab, the Payout is substantially better and proves that crime does pay. Additionally, the green box in the bottom-left tells us that if our Crew contains someone with the Grifter Profession Working the Job when it is completed (i.e. they need only be Assigned for the Drop-Off stage) then we will receive an extra $500. This is not affected by Payout modifiers (a possible but rare occurrence during Misbehaves) but doesn’t stack either, i.e. should we have more than one Grifter who completed the Job, the bonus will remain $500.

If we look at what is usually the Needs box, it shows no prerequisites but instead contains a Negotiate Skill Test that factors into the second phase of the Job. These can alter things quite drastically, so they’re definitely worth paying attention to. In this case, we see that a Negotiate Skill Test has the potential to halve the basic Payout or even add an extra 50%.

Once again, we can see the start location, now at the Space Bazaar in the Red Sun system, but this time it says to Load 2 Contraband. If we recall the conditions that make us an Outlaw Ship, this is one of them. And if we look at the board, we can see that the Drop-Off location is on virtually the opposite side to the Pick-Up, with a great deal of Alliance Space slap bang in the middle.

All such Smuggling Jobs will have this big distance between the Pick-Up and Drop-Off locations, meaning that we might not cover all that space in single Fly Action. Also, the idea of smuggling is to transport illicit goods through where we shouldn’t (Alliance Space), so it’s up to us to decide whether there’s any merit to taking these Jobs on, exposing ourselves to the inherent risk and doing all that travelling. We’ll always want to maximise what we do during every turn, and whether we’re limited to 20 in single-player or racing others in multiplayer, too much flying back and forth could cost us. We also know that depending on whether and what Nav Cards we draw, we’re not always guaranteed to move our maximum range.

Now, when transporting this Contraband, we’ll certainly want to keep it in our Stash, but that won’t eliminate all risk of it being seized if we choose to take the shorter, quicker route by Full Burning through Alliance Space. There’s the possibility we’ll draw the Alliance Cruiser card (depending on whether this is a 1-2 player game or if the Alliance Space Nav Card deck has already been reshuffled during a 3-5 player game), or there’s the ever-present risk of running directly into the Cruiser itself, triggering the Alliance Contact Event. Border Space is a considerably longer route, and carries its own risks (that Reaver Cutter), but there’s less chance of something impeding our movement, and certainly no Alliance there to rob us of that Contraband.

If we happen to lose this Contraband, we can’t return to the Pick-Up Location and get more. Fortunately, any Contraband will suffice, so if we’re lucky enough to get our hands on some more (perhaps through a Salvage Op on an ‘Abandoned Ship‘ discovered while navigating Full Burn through Alliance Space) we can carry on with the Job using those. And we’ll definitely want to give ourselves a chance of completing the Job, because we’re not allowed to just discard it otherwise, and it’ll remain occupying 1 of our 3 Active Job slots, limiting other simultaneous Job possibilities.

Assuming we arrive safely at our destination, we would need to Assign our Crew, use a Work Action like before and then proceed to follow the instructions. And we see that the first part tells us to Misbehave. Just above the text it shows 1 Misbehave symbol, meaning we have to complete 1 card drawn from the ‘Aim to Misbehave’ deck in order to progress. This is where we will face Crew and Gear-related Skill Tests, among other challenges, in order to determine the success of the Job. And this is why it’s important to make sure we’re happy with our Crew and Gear setup when Assigning Crew. While it’s a bother to deviate from the main Job section, now is the perfect opportunity to go over Misbehaving, so…

MISBEHAVING

The only occasions on which we have to Misbehave will be when it instructs us to do so during Illegal Jobs or certain Goals on Story Cards. Misbehaving is done by drawing cards one-by-one from the Aim to Misbehave deck and resolving them until we pass the Job’s required number (just 1 in this case) or the Attempt is Botched.

If multiple Misbehaves are required, the total number of cards is not drawn simultaneously, nor can we decide the order in which to tackle them. They are taken as they come, one-by-one.

With that established, let’s take a look at one.

It looks it a little daunting, right? Don’t worry, some elements are more about theme/decoration. It’s structured similarly to some Nav Cards we’ve seen, with two possible Options, and we’ll dissect it just the same.

First of all, if we decide to read some of the flavour text, we get a general idea of what we’re dealing with. While delivering our Contraband, we’ve run into some form of Alliance-related security system that needs to be overcome.

Before we look at the middle of the card, though, we should look at the bottom for what is known as the ‘Ace in the Hole’. Not all Misbehaves have them, and they vary from card to card. Should we fulfil the named condition, we would automatically proceed without worrying about anything else. So, if we have the Alliance Ident Card somewhere within our Crew or via equipped Gear, we’re golden.

If we don’t have that Alliance Ident Card, we have two options: attempt the Tech Skill Test, or use our Explosives to Botch this Attempt, i.e. end it unsuccessfully. We may wonder why the second option simply means we Botch our Attempt but that’s because we may not feel we’re up to the Tech Skill Test and the consequences of failing that (Warrant Issued) are far more severe…

Warrant Issued during a Job’s Work Action
We already know that a Warrant makes us an Outlaw Ship, along with the associated consequences when it comes to travelling through Alliance Space or running into the Alliance Cruiser, but receiving one during a Job can be downright disastrous. For starters, the Job is automatically failed and the Job Card moved to the Contact’s discard pile. Which means all that initial progress was for naught, and if we want to retry from the start, we’re going to have to Fly to the Contact and use a Deal Action in order to put the Job back in our hand; not forgetting that other players now have the opportunity to snatch it up for themselves. It also means a Solid Reputation with that Job’s Contact would be lost and, therefore, any of the bonuses that relationship imbued are gone and would need to be re-earned.

Compare all that to simply Botching the Attempt, which means we can try Misbehaving again for this Job during our next turn, and it’s clear why we might prefer that.

Note: If a Warrant is Issued during a Goal Attempt, as seen in Harken’s Folly, the Attempt is Botched, but since a Story Card doesn’t get discarded like a Job one, we can still try again on our next turn.

With all that said, should we choose Option 1, we go through the standard procedure of adding up the Tech Skill Points from our Crew and Gear on the Job, but we should also check to see if we have that ‘Hacking Rig’ Keyword because that will add a further 3 Tech Skill Points to our base score, making our chances of success much higher.

Whatever we choose, this particular Misbehave card will always resolve in one of three ways: Proceeding successfully, a Warrant ending the Job entirely, or the Attempt being Botched for this turn.

Misbehaves come in a variety of forms, with other things to watch out for, so we’ll go through a couple more.

There’s a lot going on with this one, and more than a few ways to pass it. Firstly, that ‘Ace in the Hole’ tells us that any Crew with Simon Tam among its members gets to continue.

But he’s not the only one who gets a free pass. If we look at both options, we see that Gear or Crew with the ‘Fancy Duds’ Keyword (stand up, Burgess) or anyone with a Medic Profession allows us to Proceed. If we’re missing all of these, we will have to determine which Skill Test we have more chance of passing. On the plus side, there’s no risk of receiving a Warrant during this Misbehave, and due to the relatively low test result required, there’s already a 1-in-6 chance of passing either Skill Test even without any related Skill Points.

And another, final example.

Nothing too surprising here. We get the idea that this involves getting past some guards and we see the Ace in the Hole is now the ‘Sniper Rifle’ Keyword (presumably allowing us to take out the guards with ease) along with the two main options. It would be a good idea to check the very different consequences for failure in each. Depending on our circumstances, we can weigh up how either would affect us should a Skill Test not go to plan.

What we’re really looking out for, though, are those special words next to each test: Kosherized Rules and Bribes.

Kosherized Rules means ‘no weapons’, or in game terms, that when we face this test, Skill Points from Gear cannot contribute to the final score (nor are any Gear’s special bonuses in effect). If we have Mal and Zoe, for example, then we’d only need a die roll of 2 or higher in order to proceed, and we also get that re-roll from Zoe’s special ability. Otherwise, if we’d been relying on guns and other Gear to boost our amount of Fight Skill Points, we might be in a bit of trouble.

Bribes, meanwhile, allows us to spend money in order to increase our base Negotiate Skill Point score (for the purposes of this test only, obviously) before we roll the die. Each extra Skill Point costs $100 and we could potentially just buy our way to a successful result.

To use Mal and Zoe as an example again, Mal only brings 1 Negotiate Skill Point while the test needs a whopping 9 in order to Proceed. Since we would then require at least an 8 from the die roll, we would have to roll a 6 in order to get the Thrillin’ Heroics bonus roll, from which we would then need a 2 or higher. However, because Bribes are permitted, we could always choose to spend money to lower the required die roll result or even spend a full $700 to add 7 Negotiate Skill Points to Mal’s 1, bringing our base score up to 8. This way, we’re already guaranteed at least a 1 from the die roll and so have automatically succeeded. Of course, this would really eat into the potential profit from this Job, but would certainly be preferable to receiving a Warrant. However, if we faced this particular Misbehave with Mal and Zoe, we would certainly opt to attempt the Fight Skill Test instead.

Again, it’s up to us look out for all the little details, both in factors that might help us out of trouble as well as the downsides or consequences for failure. There are always options; whether to risk a Warrant that will outright fail the Job or just buy our way through; whether our Crew are capable enough fighters without Gear, or if we’re left with no choice and feel safer with the consequences of failing the Fight Skill Test over failing the Negotiate one.

Those are just a few examples of Misbehaves. Nearly all of them are unique in some way and can have all sorts of varying conditions and consequences. If there’s one thing we can take away from these, it’s that it’s a good idea to round out our Crew with as many different Skill Points, Professions and Keywords as possible.

And so, assuming we’ve successfully cleared the Misbehave, we continue with the next stage of the example Job. We unload the Contraband and then move onto the Negotiate Skill Test that will determine our Payout. Again, another reason to make sure we’re content with our Crew and Gear setup before we begin the Work Action.

This extra, final step of the Job is just one of a few types. Some will affect things besides how much money we earn, but none will ever halt the Job from concluding in some manner, whether good or ill. Failing this Negotiate Skill Test does not mean we need to re-do the Misbehaving part or find new Contraband to deliver; the instructions treat this part as a separate stage: ‘Negotiate to Get Paid’. The very worst that can happen with this Job is that we halve our Payout to $1000. Things could go a lot worse, which we’ll see when we get to one of Niska’s Jobs.

Next though, we’ll go back to a Legal Job, but one with a slightly different Payout condition than before. The horse icon tells us that this Job comes from Patience.

First up, we check the Needs of the Job to find that this requires at least 1 Negotiate Skill Point somewhere within our Assigned Crew or Gear before we can even use the Work Action to perform the Pick-Up (and, of course, we need to make we fulfil this Need again when we use a Work Action for the Drop-Off). Fortunately, all the Leaders we’ve seen cover this requirement and so could potentially take on this Job alone. However, without a Medic in our Crew to at least Work the Drop-Off portion, we’d be missing out on that extra $400 as shown by the green box in the bottom-left.

Once again, the Job functions the same way as those we’ve seen before with Pick-Up and Drop-Off locations, the difference this time being that it involves Passengers instead of Cargo and that the Payout condition is listed only as ‘Special’. If we look closer at the instructions in the two phases, we learn that, firstly, we can Load as many Passengers as we like and that we will be Get Paid $300 for each one we deliver.

When it comes to loading Passengers on the Ship Card, they go in the same place as Fuel, Parts, Cargo/Contraband (as seen here) and occupy 1 space each. If we wish, we can even stuff them in the Stash spaces (perhaps further explaining why the Negotiate Skill Point is needed). Altogether, a standard Firefly-class Ship’s storage areas feature 12 spaces, meaning that if we filled the whole thing with Passengers, we could be looking at a Payout of $3600. Of course, doing so would leave no space even for Fuel, so we’d have to Mosey all the way to the Drop-Off (and Space Bazaar to Ithaca is a fair distance), thus making the journey much longer (remember what we said about maximising our turns?). Plus, we might already have Parts or other Cargo/Contraband/Fugitives that we’d prefer to keep on our Ship for emergencies or as part of other Jobs we’re doing simultaneously. It’s also worth keeping in mind that even when the Payout is not a fixed amount or is shown as ‘Special’ we are still required to pay our Crew their cut (or Disgruntle them otherwise).

Either way, we might see a few smaller decisions contained within taking the Job. Is it better to come back to this when we’ve cleared out our Ship? Is it convenient to hire a Medic along the way? Is that a Ship Upgrade to increase Cargo Space that we see available? What about that Drive Core that allows us to travel Full Burn at no Fuel cost? Maybe the Job’s too far out of our way and not profitable enough compared to what we have lined up already? We have all these considerations and things to balance and thus why it’s crucial to consider all the aspects of a Job before even putting it into our hand.

Now to look at a Job that may seem tempting, but has different things to consider and a greater potential for problems. The very fine hat icon indicates that this is a Job from Badger.

Yep, a bank heist. The Job Name may try to pretty it up but we know what’s really going on. There’s even a little flavour text for those in doubt, which also mentions the target is the Alliance, i.e. no qualms about this potentially being Immoral, eh?

Obviously, this Job Type falls under ‘Crime’, which means Mal would earn an additional $500 as per his special ability (plus a further $300 on account of his Soldier Profession). As this Job doesn’t involve transporting anything of any kind, there is simply a Target location to which we would Fly, Assign our Crew and use a Work Action.

Like the Illegal Job we saw before, there are no prerequisites (doesn’t mean we don’t want to be prepared) but instead includes an extra step, ‘Crack the Safe’, that affects completion after we’ve proceeded past those 2 Misbehave cards.

For ‘Crack the Safe’, we are presented with two main options: either a Tech Skill Test to attempt to hack the safe and get the full $4000 (plus any bonuses) or if we have the ‘Explosives’ Keyword anywhere (usually from Gear equipped to a Crew member) we can blow the safe apart, but only receive $2000 (with bonuses still rewarded normally).

If we’d paid attention to the Skill Test shown inside the ‘Crack the Safe’ box beforehand, we will have been looking to bring along plenty of Tech Skill Points from our Crew and Gear to ease the Job’s completion. By this point, however, curveballs thrown out by the Misbehave cards could potentially have set us back Crew members (some involve Disgruntling them, among other things, without actually ending the Attempt) and their associated Gear, lowering our base amount of Tech Skill Points and making the test a riskier proposition. After all, if we remember the Misbehave section, we know the downsides to a Warrant being Issued mid-Work Action.

All told, it pays to be doubly-prepared. If we’d reached the Tech Skill Test after the Misbehaves had reduced our pool of Tech Skill Points but had that ‘Explosives’ Keyword available, we could opt not to risk it and essentially cut our losses, taking that reduced Payout. Sure, it’s less money, but the consequences of failure could prove a more significant setback.

Now, a couple more Jobs just to demonstrate other things to look out for. This Job comes from Niska, and that icon is a special kind of knife wielded by one of his (former) henchmen.

Firefly fans will recognise that this Job is ripped straight from the second episode of the show, but beyond that nice little touch, there are a couple of new things to spot.

First of all, sitting below that Illegal box is one that tells us this Job is Immoral. We already know, by virtue of this Job being ‘Crime’, that Mal’s special ability grants him an additional $500 if this Job is completed, but if we recall the section on Leaders (Part 1), we know that since he is Moral, he would also receive a Disgruntled token. By comparison, the Job’s Immoral status means Womack would actually net an extra $500 and, given his amoral inclination, not lose sleep over it.

Crew like Shepherd Book (not shown, sorry!), as well as being Moral, will not Work Immoral Jobs whatsoever. This means he can’t be Assigned to Work the Job and, therefore, would not contribute anything towards the Needs, Misbehaves or even, given his Soldier Profession, earn us the Payout Bonus in the bottom-left; nor is he affected by any of the Misbehave outcomes.

Second of all, inside that Needs box, we see an example of an additional requirement in the form of a Keyword, this time ‘Transport’. As we might expect, different Keywords may factor into other Jobs. Plying our trade during more respectable affairs might require Burgess’ ‘Fancy Duds’, for example.

And now we have a rare example of one of our Contacts working against another. In this case, Niska wants someone to strike out at Badger’s operation.

Everything should look familiar by now, except this time, the Job contains a ‘Cover Your Tracks’ requirement. From this, we can see that once we’ve successfully completed the 3 Misbehaves, there is a further Fight Skill Test to determine if we get away clean or risk losing a Crew member and a Solid Reputation with Badger (should one already exist).

The test is unavoidable and the score to pass is fairly high, but failing it doesn’t stop us getting our Payout (the Job already instructs us that we ‘Misbehave to Get Paid’) and we might even feel the consequences for failure are not so detrimental. Perhaps we don’t care about losing that Solid Reputation with Badger (or there is no existing one) and maybe we have a Medic we trust to save the Crew at risk of being Killed. We might even have an ‘expendable’ Crew members we don’t mind losing to this or we simply had no intention of paying them anyway. Again, we’re the captain, it’s up to us. Those are just some other things to consider.

If it isn’t already clear from these examples, when it comes to the Jobs we can receive from Contacts, the general order from easiest/low-paying to hardest/high-paying is: Harken, Amnon Duul, Patience, Badger, Niska. Of course, many other circumstances will dictate quite how easy we find any particular Job, but it’s handy to know as a general guide when we go looking for more work.

And that just about covers everything there is to say about Jobs. In Part 4, we’ll look at where and how we get our Crew, Gear, Upgrades and other miscellanea…