Missions & Complexes

I just joined a new corp and they are based in Caldari space, previously I was living in Gallente and running missions for Federation Navy. I also ran missions for Minmatar agents in the past. Because of this I have roughly -3 standing both with Amarr and Caldari.

I started running level 1 missions to try and get myself up to level 4 missions when I noticed even after I had run quite a few I could not progress to even a level 2 agent and from what I am reading I should be able to. What am I missing?

For this one particular agent (level 2) I read this in the info: "Your personal standings must be -1.9 or higher toward this agent, its faction, or its corporation in order to use this agent's services."

Now, my agent standing is 0.00. Faction standing is -3.04. Corp standing is 2.54.

From the use of 'or' in the agent requirements as far as I can tell I should be allowed to use this agent. So why can't I?!

Faction has to be higher than -2.

Train up the Social skills, especially the Diplomacy skill.

That will help raise your negative standings without affecting your positive standings. If you're trying to gain positive standings with all Factions, check out the 'Plan'.

To access a level 2 agent you need to have adequate standings with the agent's corp and faction. That is neither of them at -2 or worse, and at least one of them at 1 or better.

This is covered at http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Standing with additional info at http://wiki.eveonline.com/en/wiki/Agent.

Your difficulty appears to be that your faction standings are so low (-2 or worse) that they 'block' or override your corp standings from taking effect. The remedy depends on what it is that you want to achieve.

I was in a similar situation earlier this year and wanted to be able to access all the epic arc agents. I started to 'fix' the problem by grinding level 1 missions. After a week of this I discovered DMC's 'plan' for faction standings repair (mentioned above) and started following its advice. Doing this achieved more repair in a single session than I had managed in a week of running lvl1 missions. I kept at this until I got the four major factions on the sunny side of -2.

Once I had done that I started working up the specific corporations I was interested in, until I had them all better than 3 or 5 (depending on whether I needed lvl3 or 4 mission access).

This process has shifted me from being beloved to the Minmatar / Gallente (> 9) and loathed by the Amarr / Caldari (< -2), to having middling standings with most factions* and adequate corporation standings to access the agents I need. I rarely seek normal agent missions now, instead limiting my mission running to the six lvl3&4 epic arcs and the occasional cosmos effort.

* Tho not Serpentis and Sansha, who still are not very fond of me.