I really love this mod, Gwyvern. Thank you very much for making it!
One perennial question I do have though, is how do I send operatives to raise my relations with them?
I don't know, I've been out of the loop for a very long time at this point.
I've got this one, Gwyvern. First, you get an agent. If you do not have an agent, find one. They're often available around bars at stations or the local spaceport. Not always, but sometimes. You're looking specifically for a diplomat, as they're the best suited to easing tensions between parties.
Once you have one, find one of the ARS's spaceborne outposts. I can't tell you where to look exactly, as they change from seed to seed, but they usually start at the beginning on the outskirts of the Core Worlds before being wiped out and rebuilt further away. If they do not like you to start, all you have to do is discover the station itself, and bug out.
Once that's done, go to your operative, put them on perpetual assignment, and raise relations between your faction and the ARS. It should give you the option to choose that station for them to go to, so they can make their case for why you should be friends. I don't know what happens if the station gets destroyed, they might relocate to another station, or their mission might end prematurely.
Regardless, every few weeks, you'll get a mission report followed by a standings change. It won't always be positive, as sometimes (especially with lower level operatives) they fail and your standings decrease. Don't fire them just yet, these things take time. With enough time the ARS will favor you enough to allow you to complete jobs for them, or encounters in bars will reveal the remaining stations where you might find more luck sending other diplomats to do the same as your first and speed up relations buffing.
This is about the only way to befriend them when they're not being invaded and post system bounties for you to cash in on, unless you manage to get in close with a low sensor profile, IFF dropped, and dock, and hopefully get a non-pirate agent job from them to do.
Remember: these people are not Perseans. They don't like Perseans. For good reasons. They look at the goings on of the Persean Sector with what amounts to a healthy dose of skepticism, and are more often not wanting to be left to their own devices, except in where they can screw over Perseans for their own financial and material gain, just so they can leave.
