Four groups share your shutter: Security, the Black Market, the Revolution and the Upper Level elites. Every one of them asks the same four-way question, and the answer is the same four-way answer — approve, refuse, report, or look away. Someone is always taking notes.
Probably Stolen Factions: The Four Groups You Answer To
| Faction | What it wants from you |
|---|---|
| Security | A clean shop, and reports on wanted posters |
| Black Market | Discounted hot stock, and no reports on people who are not on the poster |
| Revolution | Leverage, and no help given to Security |
| Upper Level elites | Convincing fakes and premium SKUs |
The customer types behind them are a Security inspector fishing for evidence, a revolutionary seeking leverage and a fallen elite testing your usefulness. Upper-level money pays for a convincing fake, and the tiering is enforced at SKU level — Premium Spring Water carries the Water tag but non-Upper-Level customers and tourists will not accept it.
Aug policy is the one thing every faction agrees on: shoot the rogue hosts on sight.
The NPCs you can do business with are Dr. Jackson, who sells gadgets, manuals and machines; Joe Wild, whose insurance and Wild's Network upgrades keep the shop standing; the Mentor, who runs the tutorial; Officer Lun and cadet Serpico; Eleanor, whose story you play a crucial role in; and Lou, the criminal mastermind whose storyline completes in 1.0.
The Four-Way Answer At The Counter
- Approve takes the credits and the heat.
- Refuse keeps the shop clean and loses the margin.
- Report pays Security for a wanted poster match, costs Revolution standing if the face matters to them, and burns Black Market standing if the person was not on the poster.
- Look away is a choice, not invisibility.
The Aug identification page covers the face that every faction agrees on.
Probably Stolen Reputation Thresholds And Their Perks
Reputation buys access and protection and paints a target on your back. It decides which door opens and which gun remembers your name.
| Standing | Threshold | What it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| Security | 20 | A predetermined flexi buyer and a requisition officer seller |
| Lower levels | 40 | Can place a rare merchant |
| Black market | 40 | Guarantees a normal thief on Mondays |
| Revolution | 40 | A Revolution raider on Fridays and a Revolution quartermaster on Sundays |
| Upper levels | 20 | +15% on trading with upper levels |
Difficulty scales it. On Price Gouge reputation gains are x1.5 and reputation losses x0.5; on Mark Up both are x1; on Thin Margins gains are x0.75 and losses x1.25. Wild's favour is a separate currency with its own scaling — increased on Cozy, standard on Normal, reduced on Hard.
How standing moves: reporting a wanted poster raises Security and lowers Revolution; selling a discounted stolen lot, or reporting a criminal who is not on the poster, moves Black Market standing; selling to the upper-level water stockpiler raises upper-level standing. Clearing an inspection no longer pays Security standing.
The Diplomatic achievement tracks reaching maximum reputation with any faction, and the wanted board page covers the reports that move three of these meters at once.